Share your "Why I got a tort" stories

[Kim444]

My mom was an animal lover. I am an animal lover. I have had cats, dogs, rabbits, mice, hamsters, gerbils, fish, hermit crabs, budgies, green tree frog, slider turtles, long tailed green grass lizard. I currently have a rescued Labrador retriever dog, 2 leopard geckos, 2 large rescued parrots and a newly adopted Greek tortoise. I personally am amazed they can live so long, I love how they look like old men, and their shells are just awesome. I seem to have an infinity for long lived animals. My parrots life expectancy is around 80 years old, then I have Mr. T...

I wish I had the room and climate for a large tortoise. I see lots of Sulcata's up for adoption :-(

 

[Kitkat1989]

I have always thought they were pretty cool but to start with I wanted yellow bellied turtles. Did a lot of research on them and then decided I liked the look of hermann tortoises and that was a better choice for me. I too have other reptiles, I have a albino fat tail, a panther chameleon and a good old bearded dragon and I also have 2 chihuahuas, a hamster and a ever growing collection of fish. Not a exciting story other than i wanted to add to my zoo!

 

[donna123]

i always wanted a tortoise as a kid but wasn't allowed, i think they are amazing creatures and remind me of dinosaurs i just recently got my horsefield and love her to bits, so do my children, my only regret is that i didn't get one sooner, she has brought me so much joy in the short space of time that i have had her.

 

[turtlemanfla88]

I might be wrong ,but I never seen a place where we can all talk about our first time /first experience with turtles and tortoises. My kids who are nine and ten always ask everyone they meet about their first turtle/tortoise. I thought it would be cool because that is something we all have in common. In 1975 I was a boy growing up in New York and I found a beautiful box turtle in our garden my parents let me keep him a couple days then we released him in our garden and we would find him once in awhile walking around. I always love reading books about all animals ,but that got me hooked on reading about turtles and tortoises. I I have many books now ,but I still have some of my first books I got when I was a kid. Especially the Golden Guide about Reptiles and Amphibians. Years later I met one of the authors in Gainesville Florida at All Florida Herp Conference and he signed the book. I got more stories,but I want others to post and I do not care if your my age or older or you just got your first animal now get tying and tell your story or stories.

 

[hessbrit]

Turtles have always interested me My mom wouldn't let me have one as a child because she said they were "germy" They've always been bumping around in my mind Then, one faithful day at the most amazing pet store in Michigan (while on vacation) I saw a RF and was instantly locked in I didn't get that baby redfoot, but spent a few months researching when I got home and joining this forum Last month, I bought Tallula my Hermann's tortoise from Chris, the breeder in NJ I've been smitten ever since!

Do you remember what pet store it was?? Or what area??

 

[Flipper]

Do you remember what pet store it was?? Or what area??

Oh yeah! I'll never forget Pruess Pets! It's in Lansing, MI.

 

[hessbrit]

Oh yeah! I'll never forget Pruess Pets! It's in Lansing, MI.

I figured it was probably them. I'm from East Lansing and they're THE COOLEST pet store ever!

 

[stojanovski92113]

Okay here it goes... get your popcorn and drinks and sit back and relax and read the long account of Joey, three decades of the third age of this World, living in the West of the Middle part of this Earth ( sorry New Line cinema I like my own story please )

I feel like I am writing my autobiografy
Sorry, I will try and make this interesting read as best as I can.

Background...

Ever since I was a child I was obsessed with animals.
When I first came in to contact with turtles I was very , very young and I got two little sliders complete with the whole horrible plastic round cage with the island and the palm tree. Nobody knew back then, what they exactly needed, and it was a hype, in the early nineties.
Sadly I lost them. I was too young and irresponsible.
The interest however always remained.

When I was older and learned more responsibility, my mother permitted me to get another turtle and I have kept red eared sliders, sawbacks, Reeves' Turtle, and have had several specimens.
Eventually I quite the turtle hobby and focused on other interests.
Through the years I have kept reptiles, amphibians, avians, rodents, fish, invertebrates, insects, you name it.

I was known for my " zoo like" house and personality....

The now.....

I am now almost 30 next March and I haven't had turtles in a long time, but I have been living on my own for a year now and I have been busy with scorpions for a few years.
Sadly a lot of them died in a short while, and I found myself having to replace the animals, but not being able to breed them. Luckily I still have some scorpions left, but finding myself dealing with the possibility of losing them so quickly made me sad.

I have enjoyed my Ball python Nagini, for 11 years now and my Redrump Tarantula for also, 11 years, and I consider them a part of my family , and I tend to get attached to animals quite quickly and that bond goes deep beyond being able to explain such a phenomenon.

I like the term "Life companion", I am alone a lot, and have a lot of baggage, so to speak, sometimes even the most basic things people do, are a challenge for me. I have seen many things in my Life for good and sadly very bad too, and have the scars to show for it. So in a way I created my own family which is my source of strength and Love which keeps me going.

I tend to not always feel comfortable in large crowds, or with people in general, again the baggage, and the fact I am an HSP or Indigo child (highly sensitive person) makes Life a very big challenge for me.
I am drawn towards animals, and I feel very comfortable with them, as in and with Nature, which is for me, the very essence of being.

How I got to tortoises?
As long as I can remember, I couldn't get one particular school book out of my head.
I was 9 or 10 years old and I read a book about a boy who had all sorts of adventures with/about/connected to a Greek tortoise.

Funny fact:
Where I live we have other informal naming for animals than the English speaking, for example, a Greek tortoise, is most of the time Testudo Hermanni, and we call Testudo Greaca, " Moorse landschildpad" which you could translate into Moorish Tortoise. I don't exactly know what species the Greek tortoise actually was in the books, it was a children's book so taxonomy was a bit redundant


I have never been able to recall the title of the books, nor do I remember anything other than the boy and the tortoise.
I was absolutely mesmerized by the idea of an animal as exotic as a Greek tortoise.
For me as a child in the nineties, a Greek tortoise was as exotic as an African Elephant

I have been enamored by the idea of having a tortoise for almost 2 decades, but never ever dared to, nor had permission or the means to actually keep one.

Then I got thinking about turtles again....

I was attached to a particular Reeves' turtle I once had which I called Ma'el after an important character out one of Gene Roddenberry's SF series. I really have been sorry for years, that I gave him to a pet store when I quite the turtle hobby many years ago. I still think about him sometimes and hope he is well.

A few months ago after thinking about Ma'el again, I decided I would really like a new turtle and I went and got myself a Loggerhead musk turtle, which is a hoot in behavior, personality and just very fun to have. Nemo, is quite the character. He really knows how to show you he is hungry and won't give up trying to get attention when the little clown is seemingly famished, which is apparently, at all times.....


And eventually the tortoises hopped back into my mind.... never been really gone at all ....

After a while, I started toying with the idea of getting a tortoise.
It first started with browsing adds on the web, reading about them and remembering the craving I felt for having one.
I decided I preferred a Russian tortoise because of it's size and beginner friendly husbandry.

Eventually I responded to an ad which was a little tortoise which was presented as a male and came with an aquarium and everything in which he already had lived a few years.

After mailing back and forth negotiating the previous owner and myself came to an agreement, and I went to get him accompanied by my big strong friend, who I desperately needed to help me lift the heavy stuff.

He was called "Franske" , which you could loosely translate to little Francis, and was very exited to get him.
At that time, I was studying tortoise husbandry daily for several hours.
As I was and am still studying and learning about them daily, I quickly learned here that he was in fact a " she" and in fact in need of a habitat makeover.

I have had a lot of experience with turtles, so I knew sufficient to set up and keep Nemo and be confident enough with him to not worry too much....

And Yoshi quickly became my new obsession, and I love/worry/obsess/spoil... you name it, even moping about her bulldozing the set up like an annoyed father looking at a loved child who makes him want to pull his hair out...

(In the beginning she constantly defied all hides and dug at all times with all effort possible under the feeding tray as some point there always was tortoise butt sticking out the substrate and I worked so hard creating the hide and habitat.... but then again, a tortoise will be a tortoise.... )

After renaming her to Yoshi, I decided that she was in fact the tortoise of my imagination, and together with Nemo, are like my Sun and Moon of the chelonian world. One for the Water and one for Land. They are each others counterparts in every way. And I love them dearly for it.

They remind me of the duality that is also in me and try to see it in a good way
So in a they teach me about myself, in the quest to better understand them.
I hope that I can share my Life with them for as long as it is meant to.


Take care,


Joey

Awesome about the tarantula!! I had 11 tarantulas for 11 years. Sadly...I had to donate them because I moved in with my husband & he wasn't having it!!!!!! I wasn't happy!! I told him that my tortoise was coming with me & I would NOT get rid of her & there will be more of them to come (this was before we got married however LOL).

 

[Oscar_Smith]

When my tree frog died, I was looking for a different pet to fill the void, (not dogs nor cats) I soon became obsessed with tortoises

 

[ZEROPILOT]

At the time I had several birds, fish, a snake, a dog, three prairie dogs, two chinchillas and a friend who had two large red foots that he had grown "tired" of and was mistreating. I took them in.

 

[CourtneyG]

I wanted one for a while, just did not know what species to get, but after visiting the Montgomery zoo in Alabama, I saw some Pancakes, and I knew right there and then that is what I wanted to get.

 

[puffy137]

Jack was a tortoise I had as a child, can't remember when we got him he was always there.I always thought of him as a sad character as he was always alone. When I was about 10 I remember going to a pet show & the girl who won first prize was a girl whose tortoise had produced a baby . She must have had a heated place for them. That really amazed me at the time . Tortoises as you know are not indiginous to the British Isles . Once while driving through Yugoslavia , now Bosnia, I saw a tortoise walking slowly up a road, & I was excited to s ee the little thing in its natural habitat . Some years ago at a local outdoor market here in the Middle East I saw baby tortoises for sale , so very cute I bought 2 one year & 2 the next year. Since then they have been fruitful & multiplied . I have only lost 2 one male died as an adult , & one female died as the result of an accident when some workmen left her enclosure which was a raised flower bed open & she fell. Most animals can become a nuisance what with cleaning , grooming & training etc , which is difficult in the culture here . I'm not fond of birds ,( although I do have a pigeon that has been shot by some moron & now lives happily on a large windowsill in the kitchen, ) so tortoises are the ideal pets for me.

 

[T0rtug@]

I have had an interest in turtles and tortoises since I was a child. I can't be sure, but I believe it started with watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and playing Mario Bros on my Nintendo (I loved the turtles in the video game). I remember collecting the Mario Bros McDonalds HappyMeal toys and the winged, red turtle being my favorite. When I was about 8-9 I got my hands on a tortoise book from my school library and after a few days of reading, begged my parents for a turtle. My dad took me to a local pet shop and we got a Red Eared Slider I named Rudy. I knew nothing about properly caring for turtles or tortoises (Kept my poor Rudy in a glass tank with no basking light, no UVB light, no floating dock to dry out and bask, and nothing but acrylic pebbles in the tank). I believe I kept Rudy for about a year or two before my mother gave him/her to a friend of hers who had lost a pet and had been depressed over her loss. Never knew of Rudy after that. Fast forward 20 years, and my two year old boy loves all animals. He especially loves turtles and elephants (ephanants as he calls them). A pet elephant is out of the question as we already have a huge Saint Bernard that takes up too much space ;-). Knowing that my boy too shares an interest in turtles/tortoises as I did, I began toying with the idea of owning another pet turtle/tortoise (becoming a father has awakened a long slumbering inner child in me, and I love it). My wife and I were at a friends home and I noticed they had a hatchling RES and that really led me to start reading up more into keeping a chelonian once again. That search led me to this wonderful forum, which in turn led me to an interest in Testudos, which in turn led me to Chris Leone from whom I purchased a beautiful baby Ibera Greek which my son named Mr. Turtle. So far everything is going great. Mr. Turtle is still shy and spends most of his time burrowed if he's not chowing down on dandelions. I look forward to gaining more knowledge in tortoise care and sharing my experience and knowledge that I gain from Mr. Turtle's company.

 

[macky9326]

An old family friend of ours had a beautiful Russian tortoise called Harvey, he was a happy little soul who had a very large enclosure and all the owners attention to himself, life was good for Harvey...

Then one day, they thought they would get Harvey a friend, another Russian to share story's with and keep company, so they purchased Toby, Toby didn't like Harvey...

Within weeks Toby had taken control of the box, not letting poor Harvey eat or sleep in the warm hollow log they had lovingly placed in his enclosure, Toby claimed all the territory in the box for himself, he was the new kid in town and he wanted everything.

So after much thought and debate, they decided to rehome the four year old Russian that was Toby, they tried to sell him but couldn't find a suitable home, however there persistence would be rewarded, and they knew the perfect home for him wouldn't be far away.

Then one morning they came across little Harvey, battered and bruised from a vicious beating from the problem child they called Toby. With no time to spare and no funds to house them individually, they asked me if I would take the responsibility of looking after him.

Nervous at first and not knowing the slightest thing about tortoises, I took him on, invested many hundreds of pounds and hours doing a crash course in tortoise keeping, and I wouldn't change one thing about him, he has his own space, Harvey is recovering nicely, and I'm stuck with a sociopathic, but beautiful Russian tortoise!

 

[dmarshall1991]

About 5 years ago I was at a reptile shop getting frozen rats for my pet snake. I walked past this big enclosed area that had about 5 adult red foots in it. As soon as I was walking past the front they all took off in a crazy frenzy of who could get to me fastest. It was the cutest thing. They all 5 stretched their necks as far as they could go just begging to be noticed lol. In that instant I dropped my bag of rats crouched down and spent the next 45 minutes rubbing their necks and talking to them like a crazy person. that day is when I decided that I could not live my life without ever having one of my own. That was 5 years ago.. and now my time has finally come! This Saturday I will be going to pick up a redfoot that I'm adopting and it's all thanks to those 5 crazy funny redfoots who scuttled their way over to greet me as I walked past their habitat.

 

[WillTort2]

I got my start with tortoises from assisting a friend in learning to care for a Russian tortoise. When her Russian was discovered digging up her family's yard about 30 feet away from his enclosure; I was asked to take over caring for the tortoise. And as most of you know Russian tortoises are so addictive with their diverse personalities and curious natures.

So, now I have 3 males and 2 females. Some were sympathy purchases and some were rescues from people that could not care for them. They all have separate enclosures and enjoy outdoor time as much as possible.

 

[puffy137]

Wonderful stories & Macky love your Harvey, so handsome. Glad he's a tortoise & not a turtle as turtles can pass on Salmonella esp to little humans .

 

[Yxx]

One day I found a tiny aquatic turtle in my yard. It must've came from the lake nearby. The turtle was obviously dead, but that started my interest in getting a turtle. After I saw a few, I decided that a tortoise would be better. That's why I got my Russian.

 

[kirsty Johnston]

Has anyone ever read the book esio trot by rod Dahl? I'm not too sure if he is only known in the UK... But anyway my mum used to read me that book every night before I went to bed as a kid and it's about tortoises and my absaloute fave
So anyway I guess I always had a thing for tortoises and I had a big teddy tortoise as well which still lives at my parents. I always wanted one but never had a house and always lived in flats. So about 6 months after I bought my 1st house with a garden I was in the local pet shop and there was a Greek tortoise in an enclosure with all these Hermains and I felt really sorry for it and came to the conclusion it was being bullied because he was different to the rest and decided to take him home.
Beastie is one of the best things that ever happened to me. Now I know much more about tortoises other than fictional books and stuffed toys I would never buy another tort from a pet shop but he is amazing and wouldn't change him for the world

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Starting from 2013, I really liked turtles. I wanted a turtle very badly, so my mom said that if I didn't have any bad comments in my report card, she would give me 2 turtles. In June/July (2014), my mom told me that she would buy me a turtle. I was very happy! My mom bought me two 1-year-old turtles and I named them Blastoise and Torterra, after turtle Pokemon. Sadly, Torterra just died today...

Very sorry to hear about Torterra.