Hello From a Prospective Tortoise Owner

[Gaby]

Hi everyone! My name is Gaby and I live in Northern Virginia. I've been seriously contemplating the idea of adding a tortoise to my family for a few months (although I've been a turtle/tortoise lover for my entire life). I don't want to jump into tortoise ownership completely unprepared, so I was thrilled to find this forum and hope that I can learn from all of you!

Outside of my yearning for a tortoise, I am a full-time law school student and I breed & show purebred dogs in AKC Conformation and Performance events. Growing up, it seems like I lived in a zoo. In addition to the typical dogs, cats, small mammals and horses, my family had many exotics over the years, including various snakes, chameleons, iguanas, various frogs, small birds and a blue and gold macaw.

After researching the various species of tortoises, I think I've settled on the Leopard tortoise. Although the Sulcatas are incredible, and I would absolutely LOVE to own one at some point down the road, I think a Leopard would be more manageable for me space-wise at the moment. I will definitely have many questions going forward about how to best care for my new addition. I'm hoping to find a breeder in the near future and finally get my tortoise!

 

[wellington]

Hello,and Welcome One of my favo species. Please read Toms threads below in my post for raising a healthy, smooth leopard. The sulcata threads also apply.

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome.

 

[bouaboua]

Hello and Welcome. Good to have you here. We love Leopard Tortoise.

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Hello Gaby welcome to the TFO from AZ . Leopard Torts are great . But leopards and dogs don't do well together .


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[Levi the Leopard]

Welcome to TFO! I'm a fan of Leopard tortoises myself

I suggest you read up on things like:
Closed chambers for the indoor enclosure
The Sulcata hatchling caresheet (it's the same care for the Leopard)
Keeping tortoises in pairs
Hatchling failure syndrome

...just to get you started I'm sure if you type these phrases in the search bar, the threads will pop up.

Again, welcome. And feel free to head over to the "other pet" section and share about your dogs!

 

[JoesMum]

Heloo and welcome. Here are a couple of threads to start you off

Beginner Mistakes
How to raise a healthy Leopard Tortoise

 

[Teacup]

Welcome!

Leopard torts are absolutely beautiful; good choice! You'll find lots of info about their care, housing needs, diet, etc, on this forum.

What kind of dogs do you breed? I am a dog nut! Been involved in greyhound adoption/rescue for many years, and I am very fond of all the sighthound breeds.

 

[Yvonne G]

Welcome to the Forum, Gaby!

We have several leopard breeder/sellers here on the Forum. You can take a look through the 'for sale' and 'sold' ads and make a note of the usernames and when you're ready, you can contact them to see if they have any for sale.

 

[Gaby]

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome and the links to all of the great threads! I'm thinking about starting to put together my indoor enclosure this week and try to get everything ready before I start looking for my future tortoise.

I breed and show bedlington terriers. Here is a picture of one of mine (the dog on the far right):

I know that tortoises and dogs are not good together (my dogs often find box turtles in the yard that I have to go "rescue" and put outside of our fence again). My tortoise and my dogs will be kept on entirely separate levels of my house. The dogs stay on the main floor and my tortoise will stay up on the second floor of the house. There are at least 3 doors and 2 baby-gates between the two areas at any given time.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Welcome to TFO!

 

[Teacup]

Wow, those are beautiful dogs! And quite the unusual breed.

 

[pam]

Welcome Beautiful dog your groomer does an awesome job

 

[kanalomele]

Welcome to TFO.

 

[Gaby]

Well, I had a bit of a change of plans, so to speak. After pining over tortoises for several months, and my entire family having to listen to me and tolerate it, my parents decided to go out and surprise me by getting me a Russian Tortoise as a "welcome home from law school" present...


So, I'd like to introduce my new Russian - Chowder

Not quite what I had in mind, but he'll live in the lap of luxury here either way. My plans to add a leopard to my home will have to be put on hold for a little bit, as I've got my hands full here with Chowder. I'm still in love with the leopards though...and if the right one comes along, I don't know how I'll resist!

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Don't nock Russians or leopards I have both ( but I'm a tort addict ) and I think if I had it to do over I would have all Russians .


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[Gaby]

Oh no! I definitely wasn't knocking him or Russians in general - in fact, I really have been enjoying him! I'm just really a planner (especially when it comes to adding animals to my household) and he kind of came out of left field since I had been on the path to getting a leopard. I felt very prepared for a leopard, but hadn't done nearly as much research on a Russian, hence why I have my hands full with Chowder - learning about his needs and catering to them. So far, I'm loving having a tortoise in my life - there isn't much cuter than seeing a little dinosaur tromp around with his breakfast

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Gaby if one is stressful let me show ya something


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