The Hip tortoise!

[Greg T]

This is really great. A tortoise helping homeless and recovering alcoholics!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2009/07/30/haeberle.ky.tortoise.WDRB?iref=videosearch

 

[terryo]

Wow! What a great video. Thanks for that.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

I've seen that video before, and what I personally see is a Sulcata tortoise with MBD who is not getting the type of food he needs for correct healthy growth. He gets a meal of collard greens...woo hoo! I see a tortoise who evidently is not set up well enough to maintain healthy growth...I know there are those of you who get the warm fuzzys when you see something like that. But look at his flat carapace, it's not rounded like it should be. Look at how he walks, I can't exactly put together why it looks wrong to me, but it does. Also he looks too dry.
I'm glad that the man is staying sober, but he could stay sober using the 12 Steps of AA, instead of damaging the health of that tortoise.
Yeah, I know there's a whole lot of you out there throwing your empty beer cans at me, but remember...I'm the cretin who doesn't like children either... I just think that tortoise is suffering life threatening/shortening injury by the way he is being kept.

 

[dmmj]

I couldn't agree more maggie, it looks like a giant pancake tortoise to me, there is sonmething wrong with it's shell, I did not notice anything funny about it's walk but it legs looked funny to me.

 

[Candy]

Loved it! He is really adorable.

 

[Tortuslvr]

No where does it say that the recovering alcoholic has had the tortoise from a hatchling. There fore whatever you are seeing in his shell may or may not have anything to do with how he is being cared for now. I think it is great that they are both caring for each other, and I can guarntee that tortoise is getting more attention and time spent with him than my tortoise's are!

 

[Yvonne G]

As to why the tortoise looks sorta' flat...I thought the perspective of the video was off, causing the picture to be somewhat elongated sideways and causing the tortoise to look a little flatter than it probably is. I don't think he really looks that flat in real life.

To each his own. If the man enjoys walking his tortoise and the tortoise enjoys the walk, more power to them. Personally, I wouldn't allow my Dudley to know that there is a world outside of his boundaries. Its hard enough as it is to keep him out of the pastures he knows about so they can grow.

Yvonne

 

[Millerlite]

Good vid. Can't really say hes a bad tortoise owner, like above said he might of adopted the tortoise, or rescued it. We don't know. Jumping to conclusions is not right, and not fair to any owner. If i were to say people were bad owners for every rescued tortoise picture i saw, a lot of rescuers would hate me. But sulcatas are over bred, so even if its in bad care at least there are hundreds being bred every year and needing homes,

 

[Greg T]

To each his own. If the man enjoys walking his tortoise and the tortoise enjoys the walk, more power to them. Personally, I wouldn't allow my Dudley to know that there is a world outside of his boundaries. Its hard enough as it is to keep him out of the pastures he knows about so they can grow.

Yvonne
[/quote]

Yvonne, how about this video. It seems as though Newman knows what to do on his walks. Perhaps a better environment than the previous video I posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltu18ZtUYRo

 

[Yvonne G]

Yeah, I had seen that one before too. Newman's video shows even better evidence that the picture has been scrunched up to fit the screen, hence making the tortoise look out of proportion. I guess a lot of people take their sulcatas for walks, especially in SoCal.

Yvonne

 

[Nay]

Yes I agree with Greg. at least Newman's walk had a little green in it.And it looked like when they first took off he had a tag, or nameplate glued on his shell. Do torts travel that much in the wild? 2 miles is a long way..
Na