05/19/2026
🐢 Toby’s Survival Story 🐢
Toby is a young Red Foot Tortoise who was brought to our rescue when one of our volunteers was at someone’s house and found the person’s dog with the tortoise in his mouth basically tearing him up.
When you see the first pictures, you can see where all of the skin around his neck was ripped open. His shell was bitten up in several areas and his scutes were damaged pretty badly around the bottom areas of his shell. Luckily it was not cracked open or had any puncture holes in the shell. All of the damage was done around the edges.
This poor little guy was in so much pain when he arrived when we checked out the wound and tried to clean it up a bit. He was making the most sad little sounds and closing his eyes and pulling into his shell as much as he could, you could see him flinching from the pain he was in, it was so sad. 😭
We were able to rinse him off, clean him up as best as we could and get antibiotics pain meds into him and some topical ointment as well.
We were able to have the vet look at him the next day and she debrided his wound, scrubbed him up real good gave him an injection of pain, medication anti-inflammatory and antibiotics. She did say that she thought he would heal really well, although it will take some time.
It has been about a month now and we have just finished his last injection tonight, hooray!!
Let me tell you it’s not easy injecting into a turtle’s neck when they are able to pull everything into their shell, lol
He is such a trooper, though he was so good for all of his medication’s, his injections, his scrubbing and cleaning daily.
He eats EVERYTHING!!
And of course, what goes in, must come out, so he POOPS 💩 A LOT!!
He has been kept in the patio area in a nice sized enclosure, where he has been kept very clean on towels and blankets as he cannot be out in the dirt to avoid any type of bacterial infection or contamination to his wounds. Even though he is basically healed up now, he will have to continue staying on a cleaner surface for at least another month or so. We hope that he will be able to be out on the ground with other tortoises in the near future.
He is very adventurous and is always wandering around his enclosure very social and will come right up to you, especially for foods, of course his favorite thing is hibiscus flowers, and papaya.
He is ready for his new home if we can find the right place for him where they will continue keeping him in the manner that he needs to be kept in, keeping him clean and making sure he’s eating well. He is an awesome little guy and we would really love for him to have a nice safe home where he will no longer be in any type of danger ever again. 🙏
Hooray for Toby The Tortoise & his will to survive ……