The day we brought the Trio home Pokey was feeling a little under the weather. She didn’t want to move or eat; she would sit in the water pan, her eyes closed, for hours. Her eyes were puffy and dull and when she started blowing bubbles from her nose I knew there was something wrong. I just wasn’t sure what. After a good day of soaking she ate a little but nothing like the other two.
Not knowing what to do I turned to Turtle Times and was told that it sounded like RI. Under Karen’s advise I removed her from the others and put her in a tub that I had scrubbed up with Dawn – I figured if it was strong enough but gentle enough for animals in oil spills that it would work for this. So I laid a clean towel in the bottom and put another in for her to burrow under.
When I went out to get Pokey I came across a rather sweet scene of Teddy and Booger (Hotrod) snuggling Pokey between them. It was during a cold snap that had rolled in after the tornadoes had hit Quapaw (4/28/14).
Pokey settled into her tub with reluctance but with that first pan of warmed rain water she settled then promptly dumped it, soaking the towels and making her own humidifier. That first day it was warm outside so we took her outside and the bubbles started clearing up. That night she earned her nick name of Picky Pokey when I was checking her out and she bit my little finger. Later she tried to do so again but she was given a bite of apple instead and started chowing down.
Her bubbles seemed to come and go for the next couple of days. They cleared up and then during one of her ‘walks’ the bubbles appeared again and she became grumpy when I decided that she’d had enough exercise and tucked her back away in her tub. This was back on May 3 and she has been under the watchful eye of Tippy the nurse kitty ever since.
Since then she’s been doing better. I’ve learned that he was actually a she and Pokey has quite a sassy attitude. She loves her walks out in the front yard in the sunshine and she loves eating her june bugs and her favorite way of catching them is in water. She has gotten a fan in the form of Scruffy, a little terrier mix that thinks she is just the best thing in the world. He insists on helping me take care of her and whenever she scratches in her tub Scruffy is the first over to check on her. He can’t reach her which seems to break his heart but they often sniff noses and since she was the one that seems to have been chewed on by a dog I think it’s a great step towards healing. …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times
