In our many years on the road, we have met a lot of people who travel with pets. Most have been your run of the mill dogs and cats, with an occasional oddity thrown in, like one couple we met who fulltime with two Amazon parrots. We have also heard of RVers who travel with ferrets, and even a snake or two. I try to avoid anybody who considers a snake a pet.

I’m not a cat person, and when it comes to dogs, I prefer the medium to large sized breeds. Unfortunately, many RVers tend to go with the smaller breeds, which is understandable, given the limited space inside of an RV.  I don’t mind little dogs, though I absolutely detest yappy little dogs.

I joke about not liking French poodles, though my pals Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour actually have a poodle that I have been known to scratch behind the ears, when nobody is looking. But Odie isn’t your typical obnoxious poodle, and he ignores me most of the time, which I respect, given the comments I have made about many of his cousins in the past.

Yesterday I think I met the strangest animal I have ever come across in an RV park; Randy, the traveling tortoise. Jay and Gwen McMichael are parked a few sites down from us here at Fisherman’s Landing in Muskegon, Michigan, killing time before they go down to Elkhart for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally the end of this month. I wandered down to chat with them yesterday morning, and they introduced me to their African Leopard Tortoise, Randy.

He was busy munching on grass under a picnic table, and when Jay picked him up to show him to me, I swear the critter actually had a personality! Instead of withdrawing into his shell like most turtles I have ever seen, Randy was happy to have his head rubbed.

Jay said he got Randy when he wasn’t much more than a hatchling, and that he makes a great pet, because he doesn’t bark, doesn’t shed, doesn’t claw the furniture, and is very low maintenance overall. Randy lives in the shower stall of their Pace Arrow motorhome, and seems to be very happy in his role as probably the world’s only RVing tortoise.

So what’s the difference between a tortoise and a turtle, you ask? Well, a tortoise is a kind of a turtle, but not all turtles are tortoises. Turtles have flatter backs than tortoises, they can swim well, and different types may spend all or part of their lives underwater. Turtles are often omnivorous, eating plants, insects, and fish.

In the natural world, tortoises live entirely above water, only going into water to drink. They are not good swimmers, and often drown if caught in deep water or swift currents. Tortoises are mostly herbivorous, eating cactus, shrubs, and other plants that have a lot of moisture. Their shell forms a rounded dome, allowing the tortoise’s limbs and head to withdraw for protection. Okay, end of biology lesson.

I’m glad I met Randy. He’s a pretty cool creature, and as reptiles go, he’s a lot more socially acceptable than a snake, or even a lizard. But tortoises don’t have ears to scratch behind, and when a tortoise wags his tail at you, it just isn’t the same as a friendly mutt doing the same thing. On the other hand, in all the time I was visiting with Jay and Gwen, I never heard him yap or bark!

I guess if you’re going to travel with your house, having a pet that travels with his own house too kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? What are some of the stranger pets you have seen in RV parks?

Bad Nick doesn’t like any critter that weighs less than 50 pounds, or won’t occasionally give his hand a friendly lick. So while I was out meeting Randy, he stayed home yesterday to post a new Bad Nick Blog titled The Lesser of Two Evils. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Life is sexually transmitted.

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It’s no secret that when it comes to critters, I’m prejudiced.

I don’t like cats, I’m a dog person. But I don’t like just any dogs. I abhor yappy little mutts that serve no purpose in life except to make noise and waste precious oxygen. An ill mannered dog of any size is not something I care to be around.

I tolerate well behaved medium sized dogs just fine, and I like big dogs. My preference is for the working breeds, be they spaniels, retrievers, or shepherds. Over the years I have owned a couple of Springer Spaniels that were fine animals, but my favorite dog of all time is the German shepherd. For my money, you cannot find a more intelligent, loyal, or versatile canine companion. I have had several in my life.

However, a German shepherd is probably not the best suited dog for the RV lifestyle, which is why I don’t have one today. In fact, as much as Terry and I both love animals, we don’t have any pets, and have made the decision not to do so for as long as we continue to be fulltime RVers. For our particular lifestyle, vending at RV rallies, doing speaking engagements, and leaving the bus a lot to cover stories for the Gypsy Journal, it just is not fair to have an animal that spends so much time alone. 

For many years we traveled with Terry’s cat, Sasquatch, who came as part of a package deal when we got married. But he wasn’t your run of the mill kitty. He was a hybrid with some lynx, Manx, and Himalayan blood, that tipped the scales at well over 20 pounds in his prime, and looked like a bobcat. He also had several extra toes on each foot and could use them like a hand to grasp things. Even though I don’t like cats, he was a good conversation starter because he looked so unique. Sasquatch passed away a few years back, but he wasn’t the only unique pet we have seen in RVs as we have traveled around the country.

Once, in Lake Conroe, Texas, we met a couple who fulltimed with two parrots. They said the birds loved traveling, and were always drawing a crowd wherever they were parked when they brought them outside. Since parrots can live a long time, the owners had already made provisions in their wills for the adoption of the birds if something were to happen to them. Since then, we have met several other RVers who travel with birds.

I also met a couple once who fulltimed with a collection of snakes, which they used to present educational programs to schoolchildren. I hate snakes even more than I do cats and yappy little dogs, so I took their word for it and did not venture inside their motorhome to see for myself.

While I have never seen them myself, I have met RVers who told me they traveled with ferrets, a skunk, and even a monkey. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know.

My friend Henry Gartner, better known as Flakey the Clown, travels with a couple of rabbits that he uses in his act at RV rallies and shows. Does that qualify them as pets or props? I’m not sure. Just as I wasn’t sure if the goldfish one couple kept in their RV to entertain their cat qualified as a pet, or just pet food.

Perhaps the strangest pet we ever saw in an RV was a baby kangaroo, which is more correctly called a joey. It’s owner came to a Life on Wheels session in Bowling Green, Kentucky when we were teaching there several years back, and people were crowded around wanting to pet and hold the little guy, who just wanted to snuggle up to his human daddy and go back to sleep.

Thought For The Day – Don’t believe everything you think.

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