Turtle trouble
My dog Hailey tried to get herself a pet the other day.
Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but this was all her doing. For a few days, she stood in our backyard in a far-off corner barking and barking and barking. Peter and I chastised her, yelled at her, asked her nicely to stop, but it was no use.
On day four of the crazed barking, I was about to lose it. Peter finally got really close to the fence to figure out if there was a bug or something on the fence that was catching her attention.
No bug. Instead, there was a 9-inch-long turtle. Now, to Hailey’s credit, she wasn’t trying to hurt the turtle. She was apparently just trying to alert us that she had found a little friend.
Peter swooped up the turtle after I shrieked to not touch it with his bare hands. They carry salmonella, be careful, I told him.
Sure, sure, he says in his such-a-boy way. He did use a plastic bag to pick up the little guy, though, and put him in our ice chest with some water.
At this point in our little situation, I knew literally nothing about turtles, so I had to call my 14-year-old cousin, Nick, for advice. He’s had a turtle, affectionately named “Breakfast” when he found him at the age of 5, for a long time, so surely he must be an expert.
But he wanted to know all these things I didn’t know the answer to. Like what kind of turtle he was. Was he brown or green? Did he have stripes on his face? Dude, I don’t know, I told him. He’s a turtle, he seems to not hate the water, that’s all I’ve got.
Nick told me that he feeds Breakfast little turtle food pellets and that my turtle probably was a water turtle since he seemed to like the water.
OK, that’s enough info for me, I decided. We shall keep him and name him Pueblo, since we live on West Pueblo Avenue.
Wait, wait, wait, Peter says. You know a turtle needs a big tank, right?
Well obviously I didn’t.
A bunch of Internet searches later, I decided that maybe turtle ownership wasn’t for me. They need 10 gallons of aquarium space for every inch that they are long. That’s pretty big, and pretty expensive.
Defeated, I went to work and told everyone of my turtle woes. One offered to throw the turtle in a friend’s pond and everyone else told me to call animal control or the Humane Society.
A few phone calls led me to Joe the Reptile Wrangler (my name for him, not what he calls himself, I think). Joe wrestles rattlesnakes off your property if they’re giving you trouble, and shows up at Chefs’ Market to introduce kids to lizards, turtles and other such reptiles; but he also takes in the little buggers that, like my turtle, show up unannounced, and tries to get them back to their home or habitat.
Joe the Reptile Wrangler returned my call promptly and was able to swoop in and rescue little Pueblo within an hour. Within a couple days I had two emails from the classified ad I put in the Register about the found turtle (who says advertising in the paper doesn’t get results?) and he was reunited with his family.
It turns out the turtle was quite the little mover, because it came from about five blocks away. Oh, and he was a she named Shelly.
Hailey has been none-too-pleased with us since this incident, and looks fondly at the fence waiting for her little friend to return. Sorry, pup. I can only keep up with so many fast-moving pets.
Gal on the Go appears every other week, alternating with Jennifer Huffman’s Surrendering to Motherhood. Contact Michelle at mchoat@napanews.com.
Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but this was all her doing. For a few days, she stood in our backyard in a far-off corner barking and barking and barking. Peter and I chastised her, yelled at her, asked her nicely to stop, but it was no use.
On day four of the crazed barking, I was about to lose it. Peter finally got really close to the fence to figure out if there was a bug or something on the fence that was catching her attention.
No bug. Instead, there was a 9-inch-long turtle. Now, to Hailey’s credit, she wasn’t trying to hurt the turtle. She was apparently just trying to alert us that she had found a little friend.
Peter swooped up the turtle after I shrieked to not touch it with his bare hands. They carry salmonella, be careful, I told him.
Sure, sure, he says in his such-a-boy way. He did use a plastic bag to pick up the little guy, though, and put him in our ice chest with some water.
At this point in our little situation, I knew literally nothing about turtles, so I had to call my 14-year-old cousin, Nick, for advice. He’s had a turtle, affectionately named “Breakfast” when he found him at the age of 5, for a long time, so surely he must be an expert.
But he wanted to know all these things I didn’t know the answer to. Like what kind of turtle he was. Was he brown or green? Did he have stripes on his face? Dude, I don’t know, I told him. He’s a turtle, he seems to not hate the water, that’s all I’ve got.
Nick told me that he feeds Breakfast little turtle food pellets and that my turtle probably was a water turtle since he seemed to like the water.
OK, that’s enough info for me, I decided. We shall keep him and name him Pueblo, since we live on West Pueblo Avenue.
Wait, wait, wait, Peter says. You know a turtle needs a big tank, right?
Well obviously I didn’t.
A bunch of Internet searches later, I decided that maybe turtle ownership wasn’t for me. They need 10 gallons of aquarium space for every inch that they are long. That’s pretty big, and pretty expensive.
Defeated, I went to work and told everyone of my turtle woes. One offered to throw the turtle in a friend’s pond and everyone else told me to call animal control or the Humane Society.
A few phone calls led me to Joe the Reptile Wrangler (my name for him, not what he calls himself, I think). Joe wrestles rattlesnakes off your property if they’re giving you trouble, and shows up at Chefs’ Market to introduce kids to lizards, turtles and other such reptiles; but he also takes in the little buggers that, like my turtle, show up unannounced, and tries to get them back to their home or habitat.
Joe the Reptile Wrangler returned my call promptly and was able to swoop in and rescue little Pueblo within an hour. Within a couple days I had two emails from the classified ad I put in the Register about the found turtle (who says advertising in the paper doesn’t get results?) and he was reunited with his family.
It turns out the turtle was quite the little mover, because it came from about five blocks away. Oh, and he was a she named Shelly.
Hailey has been none-too-pleased with us since this incident, and looks fondly at the fence waiting for her little friend to return. Sorry, pup. I can only keep up with so many fast-moving pets.
Gal on the Go appears every other week, alternating with Jennifer Huffman’s Surrendering to Motherhood. Contact Michelle at mchoat@napanews.com.
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