Stinker Pot

Slow Coach has all the freedom a tortoise can possibly dream of. She gets to decide where she wants to sleep, when she wants to eat, etc. When she is hungry, she will emerge from where ever she might be and walk to her blue tub near the bathroom. It means she wants food. If you don’t see her then she doesn’t want to be seen and she is not hungry.

Slow Coach roams all over the house but she has a few favourite spots for her zzzzzz moments. The night before yesterday she was sleeping at one of her favourite spots which was under the coffee table at the corner of the living room. She loves it there because it was dark and cooling. This morning, she was still on the same spot. She has not moved an inch from the last time I had checked on her which was more than 24 hours ago. She must be hibernating.

I was sitting nearby the coffee table when I smelled a funny smell, like the stench from the rubbish truck. I decided to investigate the source of that funny smell and it drew me to where Slow Coach was. As I approached closer to her, I saw some dried brown marks under her tail.

“Slow Coach, you stinker pot you! You are supposed to poo in your tub, not here.”, I said while trying to lift her up to check the brown mark, which was obviously her doing.

Accidents happen, I thought.

“Oh, oh! She’s stuck!”, I cried to no one in particular while silently hoping that her 'hibernation' has nothing to do with her being glued to the floor by her own poo.

She must have ‘poo-ed’ many hours ago and now it had dried under her shell. I pulled her from her ‘glued’ spot and took her into the bathroom to clean her up before putting her back into her tub. Then, I had the gruesome task of removing the brown mark. The smell was equivalent of a human’s. Eww! This happens when she eats too much raw food instead of the tortoise pellets. It is the wet food versus dry food science. Consuming wet food produces wet er… poo and vice versa.

“Slow Coach, you gotta go easy on the sushi and caviar.”, I said to her.

I managed to get the mark off but not without some good scrubbings while holding my breath. Next was the smell. I tried spraying the air freshener onto the floor but it still stinked! Then, I tried the insect repellent hoping to contra whatever smell that was still lingering behind. Hmm, it didn’t work either, at least not immediately. The stench only went off after 3 hours.

Ah, the fun of having tortoises!

Menu for tonight: Definitely tortoise pellets!