There she is!! Our own Miss Tuttle and her adopted sister, Gracie the cat, at home in Nashville. I know there are quite a few new bloggers that have joined us since The Great Turtle Rescue, so I’ll tell the story from the beginning.

It all started with our own Skeeter, down there in Georgia. She told a tale of an unhappy turtle, living in Virginia with the Saint’s sister. Turns out Sis had rescued the turtle from a neighbor boy that was pretty much bored with it. Sis had the turtle (poor thing didn’t even have a name) and kept it in a fish aquarium for several years. She enjoyed the turtle, but her job changed, and she began to travel a lot. Each time Sis would leave for a business trip, the turtle would go over to Mom’s house, and the turtle was very stressed by this. The turtle would not even come out of her shell!

So Mom and Skeeter conspired to find a better home for the turtle, where it would not be uprooted every few months. They persuaded Sis that this would be the best for the turtle, so Skeeter and the Saint brought the turtle back to Georgia with them from their Easter visit to Virginia. Meanwhile, Skeeter had posted to the Pet People for help with this turtle. She had found out that it was a Russian desert turtle, and was not native to this country and it might need special handling. She wanted us to help her find a rescue or refuge for this poor turtle.

I sent emails out to several folks that I know in the rescue community, including my friend Tanya that runs Agape Animal Rescue (where I adopted my Lucy). It turns out that Tanya loves exotic pets, and always wanted a turtle. She was so excited that I had a Russian turtle that needed a good home. She told me that she would take in the turtle herself. So, I told Skeeter that whenever she and the Saint could transport the turtle north, she would have a brand new home.

The first thing Skeeter and the Saint did was to give her a name—Miss Tuttle. Skeeter called her “a beautiful creature” and did research and discovered many things about her new foster child. First of all, the pen she had been living in all these years was way too small. So, they proceeded to outfit Miss Tuttle with a new home that had an area with moist cypress mulch, a warm sandy beach with a spotlight, a dry mulch area, and a log and hay for hiding under.

Skeeter also discovered that you are supposed to bath them once a week! This helps their skin to stay clean and free of disease and helps them to pass a poop, which helps keep her pen cleaner. Skeeter said, “The first time we bathed her it was as if we were bathing an infant! We were proud parents to give our baby its first bath! She did just as the internet said and took a nice healthy poop in the water! She was happy after her bath and then stayed on her beach in the new pen. She also ran laps around the new pen as if a NASCAR driver!”

As you can tell from the way she talks about her, Skeeter loved Miss Tuttle, but knew she could not keep her. She knew Miss Tuttle had an anxious new mommy waiting for her to come to Tennessee. So, Skeeter and the Saint loaded up Miss Tuttle and her new digs and drove to Beverly……no wait, wrong song. LOL

Skeeter turned over her foster child to new mommy Tanya in Nashville on their way to Clarksville to visit family. And Tanya loves her turtle! Seriously. I know it’s weird to think of a turtle being lovable, but she emailed me about a week after Miss Tuttle came back in May, and just talked about how wonderful she was. So, last week I asked Tanya how Miss Tuttle was doing now after a couple of months in her new home.

This was her reply: “She is great. She actually cuddles with our cat. I know it sounds funny!! Gracie loves the warmth of the heat lamp. So, Gracie gets in the container with her and they will sit beside each other for hours! When Miss Tuttle is ready to move Gracie gets out of her way. It’s too funny!” Skeeter and I are tickled that Miss Tuttle and her new family are so happy together.

So, that is the tale of the Pet People’s first animal rescue. But, I don’t think it will be our last. We are an activist group, I can tell. So, do any of you have any happy endings to tell us???