The Tortoise Known as Nugget

Yup. I'm blogging about our tortoise. Never thought I would, yet here I am, publicly displaying my feelings for a reptile. Don't judge. ;)

You might ask why I am posting about Nugget...well after a visit to the vet to get her beak (yes, beak) and nails trimmed, we also opted to do some blood work on her. Not because she has been sick or acting out of the ordinary, but because we bring her in every 5 years or so and figured, why not? Well, blood work shows that something is going on with her liver. I will get into more detail with that later, but for now...story time...

(If you don't want to read all of the background and memories, please scroll down. I won't be offended. I promise.)

If you know us, you know that in our house we are in possession of a tortoise. Her name is Nugget. She is located on the landing of our stairs and since we have a split entry, when you walk into our house you can see her cage. At first, many people are freaked out. They aren't sure what is living in the enclosure and want to make sure it isn't a snake. Once the inquiring mind is told that it is a tortoise, the questions begin...

• Really? Why?
• What is his or her or its name?
• How big is she? (She usually is hiding so at first glance people can't see her)
• How did you get her?
• What does she eat?
• What do you do with her?
• How long will she live?

It's almost inevitable that if you are meeting Nugget for the first time you are going to ask many if not all of these questions. So, here is the story of Nugget told from my perspective. 

Brian has always been drawn to turtles. My life has been in danger a few times now because we have stopped too quickly to help or not run over a turtle in the road. Seriously...scared for my life. But when Brian went to college his neighbors had this tortoise, so of course, he was very interested in her and what she was like. Toward the end of his first year, his neighbors were taking apart their room and asked Brian to keep her with him for the week. When it was time to head back home, they simply asked if he wanted her. So, Spring of 1996, Brian got a new pet tortoise named Nugget.

If you know Brian at all, you know that he does his research. Whether he is looking at new cars, or is just slightly interested in something, he is doing what he can to find out as much as he can about the topic. In searching he found out that Nugget was a Russian Tortoise. He also found out that she was a female. However, she wasn't in very good of shape. The previous owners didn't feed her right or take care of her very well. She was small and has signs of shell rot. She was (and still is) very skittish around people. Brian got her a kiddie pool and a warming lamp, and started feeding her romaine lettuce topped with a fruit or veggies such as: carrots, apples, cantaloupe or strawberries. Her shell started to heal and she started to grow at a more normal pace. 

Fast forward a few years and Brian is living with 3 of his friends in a house in Minneapolis. At the top of the stairs, outside the bedrooms and bathroom sat Nugget in her pool. This is the part of Nugget's life where she started to become an attraction. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but the 4 guys in the house had their picture taken with Nugget. Then, some friends that came over regularly had their pictures taken with Nugget. Eventually, anyone who came into their house had to go upstairs and get their picture taken. The pictures were then posted on the walls surrounding Nugget. Some people were funny and acted like they were going to eat her. Others put her on their heads. Every once in a while you would see a picture of someone who REALLY didn't want to hold her, so you would see an arm in the picture while the person in the photo is smiling in the background. There are a lot of pictures of people we don't know but I would say the best one is from the Halloween party of the guy in the pink bunny costume. Classic.

Bunny Dude

 

Click here to see some more of these amazing photographs. Please note that we have SO many more pictures that are not shown on this site. So if you are reading this and don't see your picture and you know you have one, please be patient. We plan to get all of them out there.

We tried to continue this once we got our own house and got married, but we just didn't keep up with it.  That is something we may remedy going forward.  So now comes the point in the story where I come in. Once Brian and I decided to get married, Brian told me one night that he was thinking about giving Nugget to the MN Zoo. He knew that she would live a long time and didn't want to make me have her as a pet too. I immediately got very upset at him and couldn't believe he would give her up so easily. I told him that there is no way I wanted to give her up and shame on him for even THINKING it. Well, it turns out it was a little test for me and I passed. Jerk. 

So, we have a tortoise. Everyone loves to visit her and talk about her. "Hey, have you been to Brian and Gina's? They have a tortoise!" She has become a part of our lives and all of us love her. So, back to going to the visit to the vet...

Nugget's nails and beak grow because she doesn't have anything in her enclosure to wear them down on. So we have to get them trimmed. We have only done this twice in the 15 years Brian has had her so it isn't that big of a deal. The girls and I brought her in to Valley View Pet Hospital (AMAZING VET!) on Wednesday and after the vet looked her over he agreed that she is around 30 years old and is very strong. (These are good things). We started talking about her beak and what we can do to avoid coming in to get it trimmed. This included putting some grass or hay in her cage for her to chew on. He also mentioned that sometimes a beak will grow rather fast due to a liver issue that can occur. If we wanted to do blood work while she was under anesthesia to trim the beak, we could check for anything out of the ordinary. The vet wasn't overly concerned, but I told him to go ahead with the blood work and give me a call when we could pick her up. 

Well, we picked her up on Thursday and test results came back Friday. Something with her liver was off. I couldn't believe it. I immediately got tears in my eyes and wondered how I was going to tell Brian. He took the news well and called the Dr. with the results.

The only way to tell what was going on was to do a biopsy and although it can be done, it really isn't recommended. (The vet would have to cut through her shell. Yikes.) Whatever was wrong could be anything from a treatable condition to cancer. We just won't know. So, the vet recommended that we treat the symptoms. A shot every other day for 5 days (I think), along with medicine in her food. He also told us that he has seen tortoises have something like this and live 10 more years. There is just no telling what is going on inside that shell and what is going to happen. Brian was also concerned about her being in pain. The vet told us that multiple studies has been done on tortoises pain tolerance and the studies come up inconclusive. There has been no way to tell that tortoises even FEEL pain. 

Something you should know about me and Nugget...Brian feeds her and changes out her sand. I have a very hard time remembering that she is even in the house. It's not like she comes crawling up to me to cuddle or scratching at my leg to be let out. There are times during the winter where she doesn't eat for weeks! She isn't the most interactive pet. Don't get me wrong, I like the little bugger, but it is hard to remember we have her some days. Now, trying to come to grips with not having her in the house I feel completely devastated! I never realized how much I took her for granted. Not everyone has a pet like her in their house and I have to say I am really glad we have her.

So, as of now, I will be learning how to give Nugget a shot and just keeping everything as normal as possible for her. We will watch for signs of deterioration, but our hope is that the medicine takes care of whatever is going on with her and we can keep her in our lives for another 10 or more years.

Nugget