Barely a week after we cleared up a severe case of canine dandruff with our dog, our two other pets decided to revolt. 

First the chinchilla made a jailbreak.

We think the dog orchestrated it. No one could figure out how the chinchilla got out and since the dog was the only one at home at the time of the escape, he’s the primary suspect.

However, when I discovered the distinct lack of chinchilla-ness in the cage, the main issue was not to point fingers, or paws, at the guilty party, but rather, to find the lost rodent before the cleaning ladies arrived and either vacuumed him up or shrieked and quit.

Here’s what I learned when looking for a lost chinchilla:

- Chinchillas do not know their names. Or they do know their names, but couldn’t care less when you call them. Whatever the case, they most certainly do not respond to: “Where are you, you stupid rat?”

- Chinchillas are not enticed to come out of hiding by the smell of bananas or peanut butter. Dogs, however, will respond to both those smells and will eat the food out of your trap before the chinchilla can get wind of it.

- Chinchillas do leave a trail when they wander away. However, there is so much of it, you would think you had a lost a dozen chinchillas and there’s absolutely no way to figure out how to follow it unless you are Jeff Corwin.

- Assuming at some point you find your lost chinchilla, you will then be vacuuming your house of Chinchilla poo for days afterwards.

- Chinchillas like to hide behind sofas, and after you throw your back out moving the sofa to get to them, they will dash out and hide behind something even heavier.

- If your dog tries to help you catch your chinchilla and he mistakes it for a squirrel and tries to eat it, do not tell your daughter, who owns the chinchilla, but rather immediately go out and purchase a new one that looks the same (not that this happened to us, of course. I swear we still have the original).

Anyway, it only took 40 minutes, and my back doesn’t hurt quite so much from moving the sofa since I took all those painkillers. But the good news is I did finally locate, trap, and re-crate the lost chinchilla (the original one, I swear).

No biggie.

But then my son’s bearded dragon got sick.

“Mom, Einstein isn’t eating,” my son informed me. “And he hasn’t pooped for a long time.”

“Well, this is interesting,” I said. “We have one pet that won’t poop and one that poops too much. This is not exactly the problem solving I thought I would be doing when I got my college degree.”

After examining the listless lizard, we decided he did indeed seem to be out of sorts. Assuming our vet didn’t have knowledge of cold-blooded reptiles, I called the pet shop where we bought Einstein and got some advice.

“We’re supposed to give him warm baths to help him move things along,” I told the troops.

Unfortunately, nobody told the lizard he was supposed to cooperate, and as soon as its scaly skin touched warm water, the lizard got significantly less listless. Before we knew it, we had another jailbreak.

Here’s what I learned when looking for a lost Bearded Dragon:

- Bearded Dragons do not know their names. Or they do know their names, but couldn’t care less when you call them. Whatever the case, they most certainly do not respond to:  “Where are you, you stupid lizard?”

- Bearded Dragons are not enticed to come out of hiding by the sound of crickets chirping. Additionally, if you try this technique, you will certainly then have a bunch of lost crickets to find, as well.

- Bearded Dragons do not typically leave a trail when they wander away. Especially when they are stopped up, as ours was. That is, of course, unless you give them a warm bath before they escape, as we did. Then you will be fortunate enough to have a disgusting mess to clean up in addition to finding your lost lizard.

Eventually all of our pets were returned to their proper homes and all was right again in the Beckerman Zoo. As I rested my weary chinchilla and lizard-chasing feet on the sofa, my son came in the room.

“Mom,” he said. “Have you seen the dog?”

Tracy Beckerman will be signing her book, “Rebel without a Minivan” at Borders Books, Garden State Plaza , Saturday, Marcy 29 at 2 p.m.