Freaked Out Frankie

Frankie just does his best to cope with the cold weather. Being a bigger tortoise, he can tolerate some time outside to eat some fresh grass but with the temperatures sitting below 40º F that is just fifteen minutes or less. Sometimes I just open the garage door, he gets a blast of cold air, turns around and goes straight back to bed (being his enclosure). Usually if he does this I will drag him out of this enclosure and sit him under his overhead heater to warm up. He is a turtle with his own mind and if he could drive I swear he would move to Mexico.

And nights gets confusing. The sun goes down early so Frankie goes to be early. But I always go down and do a ten minute check up on everyone late in the evening. Poor Frankie sometimes thinks it is time to get up. So he sticks out his head thinking its time to get up but there is no sun shinning. I swear he will give me a dirty look.

This last week a Phelsuma inexpectata got out so I usually go downstairs more than just once in the evening to see if I can catch this very fast and timid gecko. She is very rare so I am very motivated to catch her. But this continual turning lights on and off just set Frankie freaked out. Luckily he doesn't have any hands or I swear he would start tossing things at me.

Then in the morning I am down stairs looking for the loose gecko before the lights come on. Frankie is just about at the end of his rope. I swear if he could run faster than me he would chase me back up stairs.

In all, Frankie is a pretty good sport about all this but lucky for me he is a tortoise.