Wentworth T. Turtle

June 1, 2005-June 27,2005

I would like to say a few words about Wentworth, who's young life was cut short. He was a good turtle. He never snapped at anyone's finger and was always cool and calm. He had a lot of spunk. Whenever he would be let out of his little tank he would run around at top speed. You had to always keep your eyes on him, because if you turned around for two seconds he'd be gone and you had to hunt him down. He was always moving. You could here the tapping of his little shell at night as he attempted to crawl out of his tank. Due to this I notice when something was terribly wrong.

A few days ago I noticed that he wasn't moving as much. We thought it was due to him being cold. So we started leaving him in the iitchen and putting warmer water in his tank. Then he stopped eating and we thought he was going in to hibernation mode because of the cold from the a/c. We did some research and we found that turtles could get pneumonia. I was terrified. A couple of days went by and I noticed that his eyes were getting puffy and a red and a purple spot appeared on the seams of his shell. On sunday I went to animal kingdom and I boought him a new tank, a filter, a heat lamp, little rocks and eye drops and a turtle medicine soak, hoping that this might help revive him.

We put him in his soak and things looked good. This was sunday. He was moving around and we took this as a good sign. We placed him in his new home and he took off and swam a little. He got caught in the current created by the filter so we had to get him out of the water. He was exhausted. I put some drops in his eyes and wished him good night. The next morning my sister said she had seen him swimming when she got home from taking my parents to work. This was at six am. I woke up around 9:30-10:00 and I went to go put him in his invigorating turtle soak when I discovered that he had passed away. I couldn't help it, I cried like a baby. The only thing that makes me happy is knowing that at least for a little while he was happy in his new home and that before he died he went for a little swim.

So thats my story about Wentworth. It wasn't for amusement, it was mainly for me to tell people about him. I'm going to go today to "bury" or rather release him in a little creek or pond or river, whatever I find in the forest preserve.

If I'm geek whatever. i just love turtles and even more I love my pets.

~Jenny~