What A Tortoise Can Teach You

The first thing you have to know about Tortoises is that they can go on a "tortoise rampage".  You never know what prompts it.  They just get angry about something.  I just spent 3 hours battling my tortoise.  Bump is a 15 year old sulcata tortoise we rescued from the LA Shelter.  He now weighs 67 pounds.

Gator as a Puppy and Bump as a
younger smaller tortoise. 
He's huge now.

Today Bump decided that he HAD to fit inside the smaller  hut for our other tortoise.  Bump can't fit through the opening, designed just so he couldn't bully the other tortoise.  He got his front half in and got stuck.  His very loud grunts got our attention from inside the house. 

We pull him out requiring a good 20 minutes of heaving.   I figured he wouldn't think it was worth a second try.  Wrong!  So I went out trying to distract him.  Gave him a treasure hunt of luscious organic carrots and zucchini.  He hunted for 45 minutes, devoured them and returned to bashing his head against the hut.  I tried rose petals in his hut, butternut squash on a stick, and a second treasure hunt.  Why is this tortoise not tired already?

I'm beginning to get battle weary.  So I move the other tortoise who is pinned to the back of the hut to another part of the yard.  An empty hut surely wouldn't be worth head trauma?  Wrong again.  I hear some more horrible grunts and Bump has now got half of his body into the hut.  This time is takes two humans to pull him out.

I'm desperate now to resolve this and getting cranky.  I pull out the hose.  You can't pick him up and move him so sometimes a little water can change his mind about a location.  Not this time!  I give him a little bonk on his nose as he approaches the hut.  I swear he has steam coming out of his ears, he's on a mission. 

Finally, I just dismantle and move the hut that is now pretty much destroyed.  Why did I not think of this 2 hours ago?  What this angry pig headed monster of a tortoise just taught me was sometimes it's just easier to remove the temptation than teach an animal not to do something.