JD and the Desert Tortoise

JD and the Desert Tortoise



JD got up early Saturday morning. This was the day he had promised the kids to take them to the animal shelter and find them a new pet. Well, of course, they had the dog, but the dog was his, and the kids wanted a pet of their own.



Soon, he and his lovely wife and the kids were in the kitchen eating breakfast and discussing what kind of pet they would like. Maybe another dog would be nice. It would be great company for his dog. Or perhaps a cat, with their loveable personalities and calming purrs.



But when JD went outside to get into the station wagon, his dog suddenly raced by him, barking furiously.  "NO!  Bad dog!  I don't have time to play fetch with you right now," JD yelled, as he chased after the dog. But the dog kept running until he reached the edge of the woods, where he stopped near some bushes and continued to bark. JD finally caught up with him, and was just getting ready to grab him and take him back into the house when he notice something in the bushes.



"What have you got here, silly dog?" he asked. On closer inspection he saw a very big old desert tortoise wrapped in a tangle of barbed wire. He got down on his knees for a closer look. The old guy looked okay, except he was hopelessly tangled in the barbed wire and the bush.



"Bring me some wire clippers, hon" he called. Soon his wife was at his side with the clippers, and with the kids looking on he carefully started clipping the wire away to free the old tortoise, who was struggling to get away.  Meanwhile he talked softly to him, first in English, the in Portuguese, then in German. JD spoke several languages fluently, and he liked to practice them when he could.  Much to his surprise, the old tortoise looked up when he whispered "Wie gehts?" to him. Hmmm. He continued to speak to the old guy softly in German, and the tortoise calmed down and almost purred. Well, if you could say a tortoise purred. JD supposed it was as close to a purr as a tortoise could get.



Soon the tortoise was free, and they all piled into the station wagon and headed for the animal shelter, where they were greeted by a friendly volunteer. She took them into a large, clean room filled with cages, where there were dogs and cats of every kind. Their ears were filled with barks and mews as they looked at the animals with longing in their eyes. JD almost wished he could take every single one them home. They all looked so lonely.



Finally they came to the last cage, which was very large, and contained several tortoises, and some turtles who were playing in a large wading pool.



"Now don't you worry about a thing," the technician was saying. We will probably be sending this old guy along with the other tortoises to a zoo quite soon. They will be in a happy and safe place.



The family all smiled happily. It felt good to know that they had been able to help a fellow creature of the earth. They decided to come back later to look for a new pet. So they all piled back into the station wagon and headed home.



JD smiled and hugged his wife. It had been a perfect Saturday. But JD would always wonder how an old desert tortoise had learned German.



And they all lived happily ever after. The end.



Post Script:



This story was based on the idea that our companion animals learn to respond to the languages, or at least the sounds that they hear from us. The original idea came to me many years ago, when my next door neighbor and best friend, who was Mexican, always spoke to her cat in Spanish. I wrote another story with this theme a number of years ago, and am including it also. I hope you like the stories. Nathalie