SawyerVonHays
New Member
Ok.... So I'm really ashamed of how all this went down. My 9-year-old niece asked to get a pet turtle. Cool. I told her that her and her parents needed to research what kind she wanted. They said they did and they said they wanted a tortoise. I was very unsure because a tortoise is a big commitment and not even an actual turtle, however her parents convinced me that they would be able to do further research when they knew the type of tortoise they would be getting and help her take care of it. So her ninth birthday came and I went and got her a tortoise. I went to the local pet stores, PetSmart and Petco, now I wish I hadn't, at the time I didn't know better though. I spoke to them before committing and asked if there are ways to get young ones, baby ones, things like that and they said that you couldn't do that here in Alabama based on state law; I thought that was unusual but trusted what they said. They had very limited selection of what was available at either store, honestly it came down to only one actually being available, they said it was a Testudo. I'm embarrassed to say that I thought that was the actual species name and all that I would need to know to find out more about this tortoise. I asked a bunch of questions and brought it home. A month later he wasn't doing so well. I started my independent research since my niece and her parents obviously never did. I found out everything I thought I knew was wrong. Most of the info came from here. But as I am going further and further it has become obvious that a specific species is need to know info when finding out what to do. And Testudo..... Is not very specific, ?. Can anyone tell me how to figure out what this tortoise is so that I can make sure he gets taken care of?