00:00Louie is a very large African spur-of-the-eye sulcata that was born here.
00:08And when he was born, first he was a cute little egg and then he was a cute little guy.
00:13And sulcatas are very attractive, very personable, very active animals.
00:17They scurry all around the place eating everything.
00:20And then Louie got big.
00:22And now that Louie is big, he's turned into a very aggressive tortoise.
00:25We need to place Louie because he doesn't do well with others.
00:28He's sort of like a guy that goes in a bar and gets into fights because he enjoys fighting.
00:32It makes it difficult for us because he's always being aggressive towards the other
00:36male tortoises.
00:38Guys fight over sex, they fight over territory, and they fight over food.
00:42That's Louie.
00:44American Tortoise Rescue was founded about 22 years ago as a non-profit to protect turtles
00:50and tortoises throughout the United States as well as throughout the world.
00:55Since that time, we've rescued about 3,000 turtles and tortoises and rehomed them to
01:00good homes.
01:01Here at American Tortoise Rescue, we have about 100-plus turtles and tortoises that
01:05are in too bad a shape to really be adopted out again.
01:10They've suffered some sort of mistreatment.
01:12And when a turtle or tortoise gets to a habitat, they really become one with the habitat.
01:18And to move them to a new home is very traumatic.
01:21We're very careful about who we adopt out.
01:23We try to arrange an adoption before the animal arrives at American Tortoise Rescue.
01:30We only take the ones that are in really bad shape usually.
01:36Louie is the poster child for what a sulcata is supposed to look like.
01:39He's large, he's smooth, he's got really nice scutes, he's very healthy looking, very bright
01:45eyes, he's got a really cute face, and he hauls butt around the yard.
01:50Turtles make really cool pets, especially if you have one, because the males tend to
01:54be aggressive with each other.
01:56But one guy is great, and Louie would make a great pet.
01:59He's easy to take care of, he's really, really healthy, he's friendly, he likes to interact
02:05with human beings.
02:06He'll follow you around like a puppy.
02:07It's incredible.
02:08If you have food, like a piece of melon or a carrot or something else like that, you
02:12know, he'll come running over to you and you can play with him all day long like that.
02:15And you know, they can also feel through their scutes.
02:18It's not like it's an insensitive rock.
02:20You know, Louie likes to be rubbed on the head sometimes.
02:23You can stroke his sides and his top like that, and yeah, he's really cool that way.
02:27So when it's a one-on-one thing with human beings, Louie's a doll.
02:31The perfect forever home for Louie is one where they have a really big area, we suggest
02:37a quarter of an acre.
02:39So a couple that's young that has a place where the sulcata can be isolated from children,
02:44because children can get excited and go to touch his sulcata, and if the sulcata pulls
02:49in its head, you know, the child could lose a finger.
02:52And they also need to be separate from dogs.
02:55Louie needs to go to a home where they will think about the future, where they will say,
02:59okay, well, Louie's 10.
03:01We have 90 more years.
03:04Let's make sure that we have a place for Louie to go, you know, with our children or someplace
03:10that is safe for him for the rest of his life.
03:13It can't be an impulse adoption.
03:16It has to be really well thought out.
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