A little tale from the Tortoise Hotel®
Manuel’s Guide to Humans
A little tale from the Tortoise Hotel®
Humans…
I wanted to share a little story with you today.
Because I overheard my human talking to another human.
Obviously, I wasn’t listening.
I just happened to be sitting nearby…
…very quietly…
…listening.
This particular conversation was about Costa.
Costa is a fairly small Horsfield tortoise who stays with us at the Tortoise Hotel®.
Lovely little chap.
Tiny tortoise.
Enormous personality.
And a beak that usually arrives approximately three minutes before the rest of him.
Now, for years, Costa’s human had been absolutely certain of one thing.
Costa does NOT eat weeds.
Never has.
Won’t touch them.
Costa would go outside into his human’s garden.
He’d wander about.
He’d walk straight past perfectly edible weeds.
He’d walk around plants.
He’d walk underneath plants.
He’d probably have walked over a dandelion if it had been inconsiderate enough to get in his way.
But eat one?
Absolutely not.
As far as Costa was concerned, the garden was apparently just somewhere pleasant to walk
around while waiting for the salad to arrive.
He didn’t forage.
He didn’t nibble.
He didn’t investigate what was growing.
He waited.
Because Costa knew something extremely important about humans.
If you wait long enough and look sufficiently pathetic, they crack.
And apparently…
Costa had trained his beautifully.
Then Costa came to stay with us.
Unfortunately for Costa…
He hadn’t trained my human.
I knew what was coming.
Every single day, Costa was presented with weeds and flowers.
Costa looked at the weeds.
Costa looked at my human.
Costa looked back at the weeds.
You could almost hear him thinking:
“I’m terribly sorry. There appears to have been some sort of catering error.”
My human ignored him.
The next day…
More weeds.
Costa stared at them.
My human ignored him.
More weeds.
Costa deployed The Eyes.
Nothing.
He tried looking weak.
Nothing.
He tried looking disappointed.
Nothing.
I was sitting nearby happily stuffing weeds into my face thinking:
“Mate… abort mission.”
“You have absolutely no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“There isn’t a lettuce coming.”
And there wasn’t.
Day after day, the weeds appeared.
The flowers appeared.
And the supermarket food…
didn’t.
Eventually, Costa realised something horrifying.
This woman was serious.
So he ate a weed.
Then another.
Then another.
And before long, Costa was eating exactly what everyone had spent years saying Costa wouldn’t
eat.
Now, Costa has been coming to us for some time.
And each time he went home, I would hear the same sort of thing.
“Well… he looked at me.”
Ah.
The Eyes.
Costa’s greatest weapon.
So the supermarket food would creep back in.
Costa had won again.
Until his latest stay.
This time, something my human had been saying finally stuck.
Costa went home…
and his human put him outside.
Then waited.
No supermarket salad appeared.
And something extraordinary happened.
Costa started wandering around his garden.
Except this time…
he wasn’t just walking through it waiting for room service.
He noticed the food growing underneath his feet.
He started nibbling weeds.
Then he wandered off and found another one.
Chomp.
Then another.
Chomp.
Into a bush.
Back out again.
Another weed.
Chomp.
His human couldn’t believe what they were watching.
The tortoise who apparently didn’t forage…
was foraging.
The tortoise who apparently wouldn’t eat weeds…
was choosing them for himself.
And the little chap who had spent years wandering around a garden full of perfectly good tortoise
food while waiting for a human to bring him something from a supermarket…
had apparently discovered…
the garden.
Costa hasn’t eaten supermarket food since.
Humans…
I think there’s a rather important lesson hiding in this story.
For years, everybody thought Costa wouldn’t eat weeds.
Costa had actually learned something completely different.
He didn’t need to.
He waited.
The human provided.
And Costa isn’t stupid.
Why go hunting for your own dinner when you’ve successfully trained a six-foot mammal to bring
it to you?
But once the supermarket food disappeared…
something rather lovely appeared in its place.
Costa.
The real Costa.
The little grazing, exploring, rummaging, weed-munching tortoise who had been there all along.
Nobody taught Costa how to forage.
Nobody taught him how to be a tortoise.
They simply gave him the opportunity to discover it for himself.
So perhaps, humans, the next time you tell someone:
“My tortoise won’t eat weeds…”
Just make absolutely certain what you really mean isn’t:
“My tortoise knows I’ll eventually give him something else.”
There is a difference.
Costa knew it.
My human knew it.
And now…
Unfortunately for Costa…
his human knows it too.
Well done, Costa.
Welcome back to being a tortoise.
And my deepest condolences on the loss of room service.
With love,
Manuel x
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