Frankie Tortoise Tales Frankie Tortoise Tails sulcata care tortoise sulcata husbandry Frankie Tortoise Tails Frankie Tortoise Tails: Ride In The Car

Frankie

Frankie

June 24, 2010

Ride In The Car

Anyone who has been in a car traveling with a large sulcata is fully aware of the dangers involved. No, it's not that the sulcata will crawl out of his container and start tearing up the car (he will try) and it's not that a sulcata will never rest until he gouges a hole in what ever container he is held against his will (he will never rest) but that passengers will be forced out of the car by even greater horrors.

Sulcata owners soon learn that car drives are laxatives for sulcata. They will nearly every time relieve themselves in protest over being in a strange place and often in a small container. And the aroma is not pleasant, as you have heard.

Frankie was just as bad. The trip from Oklahoma to Alabama was filled with aroma from mile five to mile 700. And unprepared means putting up with the smell.

I learned to take lots of extra towels and newspapers and garbage bags.

Frankie did get used to car trips. In his early years (and pounds) most of his car trips were to the park to graze and hunt down dandelions. As he got older, cars to him to Do Dah Day and other "Big Walks". During the winter, cars take him to PetSmart and PetCo.

Frankie has something to look forward to when we say, "Want to go in the car." Except for one recent trip to the veterinarian which included his first ever shot, car trips mean fun.

As Frankie approaches his ninth birthday, he rarely poops in the car.....he saves it all for when he arrives.

I would suggest that everyone who does own a sulcata to get their tort used to car rides...yes, I do absolutely, and when they are small. Get your sulcata used to car rides while the poop and pee output is minimum. When they get 75 pounds, sulcata rear-end output in a compact car is early deadly.

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