Carys's New Pet

Our youngest daughter has been wanting a pet for some time. She really wanted a dog. I didn't. The fact is I grew up as a dog lover and I've always had dogs as pets. Up until 2004 our family has had dogs. When our youngest child was born we had a wild boxer named Patch. I loved that dog but I didn't have the time to train her correctly and so she was always into things. One day we heard a crash in the kitchen and she had taken an apple pie off the stove and pulled it to the floor. It was still in the pyrex glass dish and glass went everywhere. When I came into the kitchen she was still eating the pie even though her mouth was bleeding from the glass cuts she was getting from the shattered pyrex dish. We have a Brasilian sister in Christ who always joked with me that the dogs name wasn't Patch but "NO PATCH." Like I said, she was a wild dog and was always getting into things. It became obvious that someone had to go. We chose to let the dog go and to keep the baby.

Since then our kids, some more than others, have wanted another pet. I haven't wanted to deal with the time and effort it takes to train another dog (apologies to cat lovers everywhere but I'm a cat HATER and that's why we aren't mentioning here a cat as a pet option). So we have avoided lengthy pet discussions.

Carys had enough money of her own and wanted to buy a pet. She received some money from her grandparents and great grandmother for Christmas and, to be honest, we don't know where the rest of her money came from. She's either lifting it from my wallet or she has some side job we don't know about. Anyway, she began the job of breaking down the parents (an art form with her) with repeated questions about why we can't have a dog. This was met with a firm "because." She is very smart and after realizing that her normal line of "why not" questioning would not work she shifted tactics. We then moved into low maintenance pets. "Well what about this? What about that?" Somewhere in the new line of questioning I agreed to a turtle. She flipped out and went upstairs to get her money. I had in mind in a day or two we could start looking . My "yes", to her, meant now, right now, we are going to buy a turtle.

So,with money burning a hole in the purse, off we went to the pet store.

Carys picked out everything. Tank, filter, rocks.......everything. You've heard the expression that a dog picks it's owner? Can a turtle do the same thing? Who could resist that face? Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you Sam the turtle. The name wasn't decided upon until the day after we bought it. Garrett and Carys asked if the turtle was a boy or a girl and the guy at the store told us we would not be able to tell until he/she was 15 years old (he/she is 3 months old now and can live to be 30). So Carys picked a name that could easily flip to Samantha if needed 15 years from now. Okay I realize it's just a turtle but it's the prettiest turtle we've ever seen. Here's Sam's underbody or whatever you call that side. Sam is a Brasilian Water Tiger turtle and he is protected by the government. When Carys made the purchase we had to have him/her registered. We were told that we have to keep this document with us and if we travel with Sam we have to take the document with us. If we don't have it and we get stopped by the authorities we can be fined almost $300.
This is André. He helped Carys every step of the way. After all the hard work of picking Sam out it was time to leave the mall and to take him/her home. He/she is in the box Carys is holding. We all love Sam. When we came home all 7 of us were in Carys's room with her helping get everything set up just right before we put Sam in the tank. Sam has to be outside every day for 5 minutes soaking up some rays. I think he/she likes it.
Not sure how but Carys has already taught Sam a trick. I guess in dog language it would sound like this, "Come on boy/girl.....come on."
"That's it boy/girl. That's it. Come on." "Good boy/girl. Who's my good boy/girl? That's right you are!" (insert "dog licking your face" with "turtle just staring at you" here)We think Sam is in good hands.