It's My Turn to Ramble about My Pet! Finally!

After almost four weeks with Zhivanna, I can wholeheartedly proclaim that I am completely in love with her. Currently she's basking on an impromptu log I rigged up out of a rolled up rug, a towel, and some shoes so that she could eat breakfast and bask in the living room while I checked my email.  Now she's venturing off, peering over at me frequently to see if I'm going to bother her.

Things I have learned about my tortoise:  She's curious and undaunted. Wandering is what she likes best.  I almost wish I had a bigger apartment so she had more room.  She is nearly always in motion.  Sometimes she does laps of a room, circling the perimeter, stopping to sniff anything interesting or squeeze herself under something too small for her. I've watched her investigate every corner of my apartment, constantly seeking out a challenge.  If there are three ways to get over, through, or around something, she will pick the smallest opening or the hardest climb.  Although she'll pause and pretend she's not there when you're looking at her, if you're just sitting there, she'll climb over your feet and inspect your toes closely to see if your red toenails smell like anything edible.  When I let her out to roam around, she doesn't hide in a corner and attempt to escape like many reptiles/hampsters/guinea pigs when you let them out.  So I can let her out to have free run of the apartment when I'm home, checking only occasionally to make sure I have a general idea of where she is.

She also thoroughly explores the apartment looking for things to climb.  And boy howdy, can an Agrionemys horsfieldii climb.  I saw this picture on the internet:

Picture Source

And I had noticed Zhivie's penchant for summitting whatever she could.  Anything she thinks there might be a slim possibility she could climb, and she'll spend fifteen minutes trying.  She purposely crawls over shoes, piles of clothes, pillows, and anything else in her path.  However, I didn't believe she could really climb as well as the picture above made it look, until a few days ago when she was in my bedroom and proceeded to climb a nearly vertical yoga mat.  I hadn't seen her in a while, so I went to check on her.  At first I couldn't find her, but that's because she was several feet higher than I'm used to looking.  I have evidence:

No wonder they chose turtles for ninja mutants.  

She hung out on top of that mat for ten minutes, climbing up a little, down a little, to the side, trying to find a way to get higher.  I finally took her down and put her back in her enclosure because I was leaving the apartment.

I've also learned that tortoises are smart.  If she knows I'm taking her outside on the grass, or to wander around my apartment, she hardly struggles at all when I carry her.  She knows me.  She reacts differently to me than to anyone else who comes over.  She doesn't draw back when I reach for her to pick her up or to scratch her head unless I startle her.  If I come over to her enclosure, as soon as she sees me she get as close to me as she can, climb as high as she can, and then reach her neck up expectantly, "asking" to come out and wander.

And as far as pets go, she's pretty dang convenient.  If I'm gone all day, all she needs is to have clean water and some veggies left out for her, and I can be gone from sunrise to sunset.  If I'm home, she'll spend hours wandering around the apartment, stopping every once and a while to check on me.  Her breed is from the semi-arid regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan, northeast Iran, Northern China, etc.  Because of this, Russian tortoises will wait to go to the bathroom until they know there's more water available.  This means she usually pees or poops or both when she's either eating or drinking.  So, instead of needing to change her entire substrate, all I have do is wash the dish.  And even when she does pee or poop on the carpet (It's happened.), it takes about 30 seconds to clean up.

All in all, I'm very glad she's mine.  I look forward to having her for decades to come.

Also, turtle yawns are adorable.