Watch Family’s Dachshund and Speedy Tortoise Playing Football Together

Oxalis

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Just stumbled on this and thought it was worth sharing. Jaguar the tortoise and Marcel the Dachshund "play" football together. Keeper Rudy Janssens "found the tortoise while walking around in a small Belgian forest"; what species of tortoise is this?

 

Yvonne G

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Well, it IS cute when you anthropomorphise like they did, but in real life, the little Greek tortoise is trying to fight with the ball who he sees as an interloper in his territory. If you'll notice, at one time he tries to go after the dog too, but the dog jumped away and the ball caught the tortoise's attention again.
 

Chariya

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My Dachshunds would have that tortoise torn up in 5-10 minutes. They're running a risk letting their Dachshund play with the tortoise. They can be nice to an animal one minute then take it out. Mine try to kill cats, rodents and anything else small that moves. It's their nature to hunt. They were bred to hunt Badgers. I've owned 5 I know their capabilities.
 

Cathie G

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Well, it IS cute when you anthropomorphise like they did, but in real life, the little Greek tortoise is trying to fight with the ball who he sees as an interloper in his territory. If you'll notice, at one time he tries to go after the dog too, but the dog jumped away and the ball caught the tortoise's attention again.
Yea that doesn't look like a happy tortoise to me either. Running around like a chicken with his neck cut off. Running for dear life. A happy tort looks more like a rock that walks.🐢
 

Oxalis

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Hence my quotation marks around "play". 😫 The worst part is all the comments on videos like this one. People anthropomorphize the tortoise, as you said, @Yvonne G, or they completely gloss over the animal's obvious stress or the instinctual territorial aggression. It's so frustrating to me. This just goes to show how much the general public is still in the dark about tortoise and reptile husbandry.
 
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