Our Latest Addition

Those that know me, or that have been following my blog for awhile now, know that I’m something of an animal fanatic. We have a few, or as my husband might tell you, a few too many. I can’t help it, I seem to have an irresistible urge to take in cute things. I might actually need professional help. But anyway, yesterday, as I was out back with the dogs, I noticed something in the pool. We’ve had frogs, lizards, birds, even snakes in there before (they all come in through the dog door – a delightful side effect of having the world’s largest dogs is that you need the world’s largest dog door) but this was different. This was a TURTLE!

I should note that I adore turtles. I think they are just the cutest things ever. We have two red eared sliders already, that we’ve had for about 10 years. They’re huge now, but when we got them, they were about the size of this little guy:

who was happily floating around on the hose of the pool vacuum. Isn’t he adorable? Anyway, I decided I *had* to leave him there, at least until the kids got home from school so they could see how cute he was. In the meantime, I googled him and found out he was a Florida Softshell Turtle. Native to Florida, not endangered, but that most little hatchlings like this don’t survive because they’re just so tiny and they have SO many predators that would love to have them for a tasty treat (aside from my dogs, who I am sure would have loved to snatch him up, too, if they weren’t too afraid of the pool to get in there and gobble him).

So, naturally, I decided we needed to keep him. At least for now. For his own safety. So off I went to the pet store to get him a tank and other assorted hatchling necessities. My daughter has claimed him, and he’ll live in her room. She also named him, Spot. I know, it’s odd, but the other turtles are Sock and Shoe (named by my son when he was like 18 months old) so she decided it was HER turn to name something. Better to let her name a turtle than a dog or cat next time we take one of them in, I guess.

So, an undisclosed amount of money later (undisclosed, of course, just in case my husband happens to read this later), we have yet another pet. If y’all see me on that Animal Hoarders show on Animal Planet some day, don’t be too surprised.