Everyone Gets A Bath!

 Here is Dora in here new habitat. She is looking out the kitchen window. Her personality has come out a lot since we made our move. Hard to tell, but she is growing.

She sleeps in her blue cave and will stick her head out to stare at me while I make coffee in the morning. Then she waits patiently for me to drink my coffee, knowing I will be back to offer her a special treat.

The boy dogs and I sit on the sofa, and I sip my coffee while they nap tucked up against me. It is a whole new world for me and my canines that I have begun to refer to as my three sons (if you are close to my age, you will get the reference). No pressure to drink fast and get the day started, no phone to answer and have to jump up to take a reservation. I don't know who is happier, me or the dogs.

Martha, the boy cat spent the night outside last night. He hid when it got dark and refused to come when called. He knows better! HeWho went out and scouted the yard and I called out for him. We left the door on the porch open and left a blanket for him and went to bed. Both of us swore to the other that we were not worried. 

I got up around 11pm to scoop Cujo from the floor after he had his drink of water. It was then that I noticed Bo was not in the bed. He likes to get under covers at the foot of the bed and makes such a small lump, it is hard to tell if he is in bed. He was waiting in the living room for his cat. HeWho opened the door and Bo went out to look for Martha. I called out for him and got no response.

We all went to bed. I had visions of bear attacks in my head, knowing full well that Martha cold outrun a bear. He was at the door waiting when Bo woke me this morning. The dogs dashed out and Martha came in. He was happy to see me, even though I scolded him. He pushed himself against my legs, winding in and out, refusing to lose skin contact with me. He finally jumped in the bed to let HeWho know he had survived the night.

More pictures of Dora when she was but a baby, barely surviving in the deep end of the swimming pool full of rotting leaves and all the muck of winter. She lay, belly up and was mistaken for a bottle cap with her belly tattoo and all her appendages safely tucked inside her shell.

The men brought her to me when, after squishing her, she stuck her legs out. They thought she would die, of course. They referred to her as him, so I named him Theodore. Further research online proved us wrong about the gender, so Theodore became Dora, or, as I call her Adorable Dora.

She was about the size of a quarter and is now more like a half dollar. She responds to my voice and is now eating from my fingers. She eats baby reptile pellets, and her appetite has become voracious. At first, she only ate every third day and if you dropped extra pellets, she would let them sink and make the water murky.

Her appetite picked up in December when I added a light to her habitat. After the move, the bulb burst, and we didn't replace it right away. Her spot in the sun on my kitchen counter made the light unneeded and she is thriving. We added small, dried shrimp and mealworms to her diet. The shrimp float and she will scoop them up as she swims. The mealworms are a smelly dish. Unfortunately, they tend to sink, and she now refuses to dive for them, preferring to be fed by me. Wouldn't you know it would be the stinky food!

Did you see the snake in her habitat? It is fake, and she likes it. She also likes her bath every other day in warm water, no soap! She likes a gentle scrub with an old soft toothbrush. Is that good for her? I don't know, but we have a rule here ..... if you live in my house, you will be bathed!