Cheech the turtle

In addition to the dogs and cats that live with me I am also blessed with the presence of Cheech a red eared slider turtle. She arrived with Ashley and Cheech has totally changed my opinion of what type of pet a turtle can be.

Cheech

My memory of pet turtles consists of tiny turtles that my mother purchased at the local Five and Dime. They were kept in a large open tank with thirty or forty other turtles that all climbed over each other due to limited room. My sister and I each got a turtle and we brought them home and installed them in a glass fish bowl with some water and a rock to climb out on. They did not live long, possibly because my sister and I would take them out of their bowl and handle them almost every day or just because they were not very healthy to begin with due to the conditions they were raised in. I had a series of turtles until one day we were told that they no longer were allowed to sell the turtles due to the fact that they were carriers of Salmonella.

When Ashley told me she had a pet turtle I was not sure what to expect. Since the turtles I remembered did not have much personality and basically just hid in their bowl I did not imagine that Ashley's turtle would be much different. I was totally astonished to meet Cheech, she was so much larger than the turtles of my past. They were only and inch or so across their shell and Cheech was four or five times that size. I also did not expect her to do much more than sit in her aquarium.

Cheech has proven to be quite the character. She begs for food when she sees that someone is in the room by bouncing along the glass walls of the aquarium pawing and standing on her rear legs. She has made attempts to climb out of the top of her tank, stretching up on her rear feet and reaching with her neck and front feet until overbalanced she falls down sometimes landing on her back so that I hold my breath wondering if I need to rescue her and then she manages to flip herself upright. We have taken her out of her tank and putting her in a small fenced area let her roam around. She teases the cats, especially D.C. when he gets to close to her she spins around and tries to bite him. We are all waiting for the day when we find D.C. with a turtle attached to his nose.

Ashley recently purchased a much larger tank for Cheech and she has been quite pleased with the extra room to swim and bask in the light on her rocky island. I am so glad to make the acquaintance of such a personality as Cheech the turtle.