THINKING TURTLE

Like many other turtles, she had tremendous feeding response, and would approach me as I changed the water in fish tanks or when I watered the plants. Amusingly, she would sometimes wiggle her wormy tongue whenever she faced me.

But she knew when it was feeding time and when it was not: If I was around and had not tossed anything into her pond within seconds, she knew she wasn’t going to get anything. That made it easy for me to change the water or clean her pond, and when I did, she just stayed in one corner until the water was practically gone, after which she would start wandering around her enclosure and I needed to watch my feet.