Last July after we took our first honeymoon, we got back and we just so happened to get a dog. This year, after taking our second honeymoon, that same dog managed to find us yet another pet. A turtle.

What started off as a normal Saturday ended up increasing our family by one. We took Colby out to a dog trail at a metro park and in mid-hike he went up to sniff what looked like a rock. Upon closer inspection it was a turtle, and a pretty big one at that.

A dog park seemed like the last place a turtle would want to be. We picked up the turtle to take a look and found it’s back left leg was gimpy. It had no toes or claws on that foot, so it had obviously met up with something. On top of that, she had a good share of leeches all over her. We cleaned off what leeches we could find and took it upon ourselves to take her home and help her out.

We stopped at the local aquarium pet store to get a setup kit and asked them about the turtle. The explained that it is a Western Painted Turtle and is female. They also think that she was someone’s pet because her coloring is a mix of yellow and red which, according to them, is quite uncommon for turtles in nature.

I like turtles. I always wanted a turtle or fish. Fish are prettier but a turtle still gives me that aquarium feature with water while providing me with more to watch than if we had fish. Neither of us has had a turtle before, so this will be an interesting adventure as we explore the world of turtles.

However, we have yet to come up with a good name for her. So please post your ideas for a name for our new turtle!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 4th, 2006 at 2:25 pm and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.