A Painted Turtle

I had a customer...well two?? customers come into the store today wanting Painted Turtles.

I think it was like a mother daughter duo? Where each one wanted to get a Painted Turtle for their tank?

Which is fun...though...i'm not sure why they would want turtles specifically. *shakes head*

However.
I had two problems.

Problem one. I only had one Painted Turtle in stock.
And they wanted two.

Problem two.
The painted turtle I had in stock....has been acting off the past week or so.
Like it's eyes are always closed and the turtle never wants to open them. 

So I wasn't sure how healthy the little guy actually was.
Like has he been eating? He's been swimming around a bit that I could see...but with his eyes always closed...it's hard to tell for sure if he can sense the food enough to go after it. 

The customers seemed really set on buying him...until I mentioned this issue. Though I did tell them about our guarantee where if the turtle didn't look to be improving in a few days -as it's hard to tell exactly why the turtle's eyes were closed in the first place- that we could take it to the vet for them.....OR they could look at a couple other turtles that I had.

As honestly I don't know why they were so set on a Painted....I suppose they said they had researched them and thought they were the best?
But I showed them that we also carried a Red-Eared Slider and an African Sideneck Turtle as well.

And when I brought them out, the red-eared slider was far more alert and active and his eyes were open.

So thankfully the customers ended up chosing to buy him instead of the Painted.

And as soon as they were out of the store wtih their new pet.
I took the Painted Turtle off the floor and placed him in our Isolation room where we could monitor him closer and hopefully in the next day or two take him to the vet. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Tortoise

Had a customer come in the store today, interested in purchasing a tortoise to keep as a pet.

Because a while back they had a Sulcata Tortoise that started out as an itty bitty baby tortoise that could be placed in a pocket....and grew so large that you couldn't lift it up. 

So they eventually had to rehome that tortoise to a better enviroment as the customer was getting older and couldn't lift things that heavy.

But they loved having a tortoise and our Testudo Tortoises don't get nearly as big.

So despite their misgivings on spending $$$ on the tank and such. 

They purchased everything they would need to get a tortoise and picked out the one they wanted. 

Hopefully they enjoy their new little one. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Price?

Had a customer call on the phone today asking how much our Turtles were.
So I double checked if he was wanting our Aquatic Turtles or our Land Turtles as their is an extreme price difference there.

He said Aquatic.
So I told him that they were $25.

However,
Somewhere in there where I said "Twenty-five Dollars"

He heard "Five Hundred Dollars."

O.o
Not sure how he managed to hear such a major difference.
Like it's one thing to mistake Fifteen with Fifty which I do on occasion.

But 25 with 500??

Didn't make a lot of sense.
Though I did tell him that if he didn't have a cage setup and such that to get everything and the turtle would be around $300-$400.
But the turtle itself? Yah. Just $25.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Turtle Problem?

I had a customer come into the store today wanting to get like 90 goldfish for her turtle.
Only she was rather specific that I catch 15 of the largest goldfish I could in our tanks.
So that she could release those fish first into the pond for the turtle to chase after.
As the last batch she'd gotten from us had more smaller ones than normal and so were 'quicker' than the turtle could catch.

Which may have frustrated the turtle to no end.
Because apparently....the turtle actually somehow ended up attacking and drowning a bird yesterday---in front of a bunch of kids traumatizing them.

Apparently he was hungry. O.o 

In any case the customer wanted those 15 larger ones.
And the like 75 of whatever I could scoop out of the large tank so that she could freeze those ones --as she often feeds the turtle via frozen goldfish on the tip of a skewer....

Yah....it was interesting.
Though I did catch all the fish for her. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Shell Rot?

*shakes head*
I don't get my coworkers.
Actually I don't get how paranoid my coworkers are. 

As apparently, yesterday on my day off.
There was yet another freakout about the turtles in the fish wall.

As a few months ago, with permission from the district manager, we moved our aquatic turtles into a tank on the fish wall where they would have access to deeper water and water that would stay cleaner because there is fresh water constantly flowing through it. 

The downsides to moving them to the fish wall?
Was that they didn't have access to heat bulbs or uvb bulbs.

I mean there is a light above them that gives off light. But it's not a UVB light.
And the water is warm enough that it's fine.
-Especially since the temperatures are now getting much hotter outside.

But my coworkers are freaking out that the turtles are sick and injured and need to have their lights.

It comes and goes.
And yesterday was one of those 'comes' days where they apparently spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to rig up a light system over those tanks. 
*exhales*

Their main reason for wasting so much time yesterday.
Was because they were like "The turtles all have shell rot! It's spreading to their heads and eyes!" 

…...
………..
…………..
……………….
………….
……….
……..

*exhales*

You know what I found when I looked at those turtles today?

Healthy Turtles.

The shells were fine.
Their heads were fine.
Their eyes were fine.

I saw nothing wrong. 

And like we've had all of those turtles for like under a month.

If something were to go wrong.....
It takes a lot longer for something to go wrong.
Especially with shells.

Like they have to be in bad conditions.
And compared to how difficult it was to keep the tank clean on the endcap we had....
They're in waaaay better conditions.

My coworkers need to take their paranoia down a notch.
So long as they're eating and being active.
The turtles are fine.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Discounted? I Think Not

A young customer called on the store today. Probably preteen or teenager aged.
They wanted to know how much it would cost to get a tortoise and the setup for it.
To which I told them that it would be around $300-$400 to get the setup and the tortoise. 
-As the tortoise is like $120 and then a cage can be another $150-$250 depending on the brand and what's included and such.

Young customer didn't really like that price range and tried to find out what exactly they didn't need to 'waste' their money on in order to get the tortoise for a lower cost.

Not much really. Not from our store.
The kid wasn't to be dissuaded though. They were like "Can't you lower the price for me? I only have like $150" 
Ha.
We're not a bargain store kid. It isn't online classifieds or the D.I. We don't lower prices unless the item is on sale or marked reduce to clear.
Sooooo no I can't give you tortoise and cage for practically half off. You either can afford to get the cage OR the tortoise, not both for that price. 

Kiddo didn't like that much. So I gave them suggestions on places to look for either cages or tortoises that cost less. 

In any case.
I figured that it was funny that a customer wanted us to lower the price so that they could buy something, but didn't think much more on it.

Until a different customer came into the store looking for a particular fish tank.
A 20 long gallon tank. 
But unfortunately we didn't have that one in stock.
We did have a similar tank that came with a lid in our reptile section.
But it cost twice as much. (Because reptile things like to cost more apparently)

The customer didn't want to buy a tank that expensive.
Didn't want me to call our sister store to see if they had the 20 long in stock.
And also didn't want to have to go to the competitor store up the street.

So customer asked "What discount will you give me to take that tank off your hands?" 

Uhh...None?

Again. This isn't the classifieds. This isn't a mom and pop store. This isn't the D.I. We don't sell things for less to just get it off the shelf. We sell it to sell it. So unless said product is damaged or broken in some way. There's no reason to give a discount to a perfectly good item.
Sorry dude. No discount for you here. 

*shakes head*
So weird to have practically the same situation happen twice in one day.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Turtle?

We got in our reptile shipment today.
Which is uncommon but not unusual for a Tuesday.

As the reptiles can show up anytime between Tuesday and Friday.
Though most commonly they show up Thursday or Friday. 

So it was a bit of a surprise to get my shipment in today.

And it was like...a normal shipment.
Putting out lizards and snakes and turtles....

Until I got to our Red Eared Slider Turtle that we got in. 

And like right off the bat he didn't look right.
The top shell was more...concave than normal. Looking more like a rooftop with the shell coming up to a point at the spine...instead of being like smooth all the way over.

And then I lifted him out of his container.

And saw the stomach of his shell.

It was concave as well.
Bowing inwards.
Not straight and smooth like it was supposed to be.
Plus, the coloration of the red on the Slider's face was also very dingy and faint, not the bright red I'm used to seeing. 

>.>
So overall. 
They sent us an unhealthy turtle.

And I'm like. Why?!
()_()
Because even though he's active and swimming around...I'm definitely concerned about him.
Like...how can you expect us to sell such a malformed turtle?
How do we know he's healthy?
Because he certainly doesn't look healthy.

*exhales*
But since the reptiles are shipped to us and not brought in like the other animals are....
It's not a simple thing of saying "we don't want this, take it back."

Hopefully the manager's figured out a solution....
Guess we'll see. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

What Exactly Is "It?"

Gotta love it when customers feel like they have to give you a whole background story before telling you what they actually came into the store to look for.

So I'd helped this customer out a little bit, earlier in the store.
She'd come in looking for Turtle Docks, to which I directed her to them, and then later, I had also helped her grab some goldfish for her turtle. 

And I'd thought she had left by that point.
but no. 
A little bit later she comes up to me and was like: "Hey, I found this thing online and it said you carried it in the store, but I can't find it, so do you actually have it?" 

Which...that was quite literally what she said. So I was like "...what are you looking for?" Because I had no idea what 'it' was. 
She'd come in looking for a Turtle Dock. Had bought goldfish....
So I could only assume that she was looking for an item relating to the turtles.
Which ended up being correct. 

She had found the floating turtle docks, and had one in hand....but like it wasn't what she was looking for, she'd had a specific 'turtle related dock type item' in mind.

But did she tell me exactly what she'd seen online?

Nope. 

The customer launched into this whole background story. "I have two turtles, each in their separate tanks, and I wanted to be able to connect them, and I found this thing online that would help with that, but I can't find it, and it's not this floating dock thing but similar." All the while she was gesturing with the handshapes as if she were describing a hide. Like a large log or rock decoration which could double as both a ramp to get the turtle out of the water, but also work as a place for the turtle to hide under. 
Which didn't make sense with her words. of 'connecting the two' tanks together.....as she wanted the turtle to be able to climb up this item and use it to get into the other tank.

So I was like....just standing there, listening to her blabber on waiting for her to say something like: "I need a ramp, I need a hide, I need a rock with a hole in it." Something like that that would give me a better idea of what she was looking for.
Because I had absolutely no idea what this "item online was" as she had yet to tell me. 

Until she finally said something like "It's similar to these floating docks, but longer and there were suction cups on one side."

And that's when the lightbulb clicked. 
Like Oh!

She was probably talking about one of our rock ramp decorations that are long and narrow and have suction cups on one end.
I hadn't ever really thought of turtles using them, but we'd used that particular decoration before in the past in our bearded dragon tanks to give them a place to bask in that was easy to climb up. 

So I turned to the shelves behind me and grabbed the ramp and was like "Is this what you were looking for?"

Yes. yes it was. 

lol. *shakes head*
Honestly.
She could have said "I'm looking for a ramp. That's long....it has suction cups on the end." And I would have gotten the item to her much quicker. 
No need for extra info. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Sad Returns

It always throws me off when customers call the store to say that their animal died.
Like fish. Fish I can understand.

But when it's the other animals...like the birds and the hamsters or more often the Reptiles.....
I get so...confused?

Because like, I see those creatures basically every single day.
And usually notice when things aren't going well with them.

So like...when a customer tells me that their new pet died within our guaranteed return period...
It's weird.
I automatically wonder what the customer did to kill the creature. 
(Though I don't say so to the customer.) 

Because like....it was fine when it left the store...why did it die so quickly when it came into your care?

Really more often than not it's not the customer's fault at all.
Some animals just like to...well die. 

This morning I had a customer all to say that the Tortoise they'd bought like a week ago...had been found dead. 

Which O.o I'm pretty sure we had that tortoise in our store for like two or three weeks....and It seemed like he'd been eating fine.
So it was confusing to have the customer call and say he was dead.
Because like. O.o 
Huh? 

*shakes head*
I wonder if he wasn't warm enough or something....

In any case.
The customer was calling to see if they could return the tortoise because they had read about the policy. (which alarm bells...if they had to read it that means that the customer wasn't told it, and my associates are supposed to be telling every customer about the return policy if they're purchasing a pet) 
Which they can. Because it was within the timeframe specified.
And we happened to have a tortoise in the store (we'd got it in a couple of days ago) 

So they came into the store a couple of hours later and exchanged out the tortoise, and my manager was sure to spend some time with him to be sure that they were taking adequate care of their tortoise. 

So hopefully *fingers crossed* this one lives a lot lot lot longer. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Silent Assistance

I had a woman call me over to the reptile aisle because she needed help finding something.

However, when I got there. I was like "What can I help you with."

And she, while looking at the shelves, started to say. "Well, I can't fi---"

and she trailed off. "Maybe?" she muttered, looking at the products.

I stood there, waiting for her to tell me what she was needing help finding.

Only she never told me. lol.

She ended up picking up the product off the shelf without needing me to show her.

I guess my presence was enough to help her find it?? 

lol but then she was like. "I also have a question."

To which I was half expecting her to trail off again or else answer her own question.

She did neither.

She wanted to know if we had any small baggies used for holding carbon.

Which we did.

So I happily showed them to her.

And she happily went on her way. 

Yay. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Land or Water?

I had a customer approach me today asking if we had any turtles.
Which...honestly...I can see why they would head over to the fish wall if they're looking for aquatic turtles...because there's water all over there....but really...why they never look in the reptile section...I don't quite know. 

In any case.
I asked them in return if they meant Land Turtles or Aquatic Turtles.
Because people usually refer to either one as Turtles...even if the land ones are Tortoises so I have to double check to make sure I'm showing them the right turtle they're looking for....even though they're in the same spot. The Tortoises's cage being right above the Turtle's cage. 

And the customer was like "Land." 
So I was like "Alright." 
And I lead them to the turtles and pointed to the top cage -which had bark and such in it designating it as the Tortoise cage and said "those are the land turtles." and in case the customer actually wanted the aquatic turtles pointed to the cage below it -which had water and rocks in it. and said "these are the aquatic turtles." 

And the customer leaned in and was like. "Which one is which?" 

To which....I had a moment of confusion. 
Like...isn't it obvious which one is which?
The top cage doesn't have water, the bottom cage does have water. 
So it should be obvious that the top cage is for Land Turtles and the Bottom cage would be for Aquatic Turtles....unless you know the person didn't realize that the bottom cage held water?
*shakes head*

In any case.
I had to repoint to the cage and go "This is the land, this is the water." 

All in all....
Very weird exchange as the customer was more concerned about the size than anything else...and kinda just left afterwards... *shakes head*

Just a weird exchange for sure. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Stay SMALL!

Customers are weird.
In that they don't always comprehend that animals...well they grow. 

The tiny cute creature you see in the cage is just a baby.
It's going to get bigger.
It's not going to stay small.

*shakes head*

I had a customer call today about our Tortoises asking if we had any 'baby ones' 
Which is a pretty common question with the Tortoises/Turtles.

And I had to give the usual "No we don't sell tiny turtles as it's illegal for us to sell them when they're smaller than four inches." 

And they were like "Oh, well how big are yours?"
"About 4-6 inches in diameter" 

"Oh, well...I know it's just a couple of inches. But I really can't care for a large tortoise right now! I need one that stays small!" 

O.o Like lady....6 inches is small...the turtle doesn't get larger than 8 inches when it's full grown....so idk what your definition of 'small' is. 

But seriously...all small things grow large.

She wanted to know if I knew of any place that would sell them.
to which I said no.

As honestly, it's illegal in the state. *shakes head* 

I do wonder if she found one though. I'd be curious to know.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Where'd It Go?

It's always a difficult question to answer when customers ask me why we stopped carrying something in the store.

Especially when I don't know the answer.
But also when I do know the answer.

Sometimes it's easy.
"Our Breeder stopped breeding this animal so we're no longer carrying it."
"We're experiencing a shortage right now."
"There was a recall on this product, we'll get more in once they fix the issue."

Other times it's hard. Like how do you explain to a customer that "Due to changes in a particular company's policies in regards to their food and selling said food, we've now limited their line of food within our store?"

Today's question about product availability involved some freeze dried veggies that we used to carry on our shelves.

Honestly, I hadn't realized that they'd disappeared from the shelves until the customer pointed it out to me. Though it was satisfying to finally realize what used to be in the empty spot. *shakes head*

In any case.
They noticed because the customer bought a tortoise, and bought some freeze dried vegetables to feed the tortoise on my suggestion since that's what we feed them in the store.

Only....for the past three or four months.
None of our stores have been carrying this product.
We have no freeze dried vegetables from any of the brands we used to have available. It's not even on our website apparently.

And do I know why?
Nope. I haven't the foggiest idea.

There are a lot of reasons why we stop carrying products.
a) not enough demand, so the company decided to pull selling the product.
b) they're repackaging/rebranding the product so it's temporarily off our shelves.
c) there's a shortage.
d) they feel they've oversaturated the market with the product and so pulled it.
e) there's an issue with production.
f) some other reason.

Honestly. I don't know.
And I feel bad for customers who suddenly don't have the product they always came into the store to grab.
Honestly, stores should give more of a warning. Or companies should. They should say "Hey we're no longer going to be carrying this, but try these other solutions!"
Because there are those picky animals out there that will only eat ONE thing and ONE thing only.
And if that thing disappears.
They're left scrambling to find a way or another food solution to get their pet to eat.

Which is what the customers today are dealing with.
The tortoise they bought is finicky. He'll eat the freeze dried and basically nothing else.
(they did get him to eat tomatoes)
So I did what I could offering suggestions
Which was met with "we already tried that."

*Exhales*
But I turned them towards fruits to try for their tortoise since they hadn't gone that route yet.
So *fingers crossed* that the tortoise takes to that. :S

Guess we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Silent Communication

Whenever I have a child come up to me saying that they have a question, or that their parental figure needs help. I'm always halfway annoyed and halfway impressed. Impressed that the child took the initiative to come find me to help them. Annoyed because I have no idea what they need help with until they take me to the location where they need help.
Often times the child comes to me because the parents don't speak English. Other times, they just got tired of waiting around and went searching for help.
In this case.
It was a bit of both.

The child came looking for help.
Because he really wanted to get a turtle.
And he was prepared to act as an interpreter to his mother who didn't really speak English.

However.
His need to be the 'middle man' was negated.
Because they were using sign language to communicate.
And guess who knows sign language?
Yep! Me!!

^-^
Which made communication a lot easier lol.
As I spent like 30 minutes talking to them about turtles and their care.

lol.
It was a fun chat, giving them information and tips.
And I was happy to be able to ease their understanding. :)

Though trying to interact with other customers and coworkers after spending so much time signing is always difficult for me lol.
I end up half signing half speaking for an hour or so afterwards. lol.

It didn't help my struggle to not sign everything, when the customer came back a couple of hours later and we signed again for a good amount of time.

Still. They ended up buying the turtle. So yay. ^^

-Sarnic Dirchi

Unwanted

Apparently customers are getting tired of their turtles.
As I had a woman come up to me today at work.
Asking if we took back turtles if they were originally purchased from our store.

Which we do.
But only within a certain time frame.
And unfortunately for the customer, they were over that time frame, by several months.

But I gave them the location of a couple other pet stores in the area that do accept animals and sent the customer on their way.

And literally like two minutes after I got done talking with this customer.
I had another customer call work.

And after a roundabout explanation,
Got to the point where they said they had a couple of turtles they no longer wanted.
So, they were wondering if we would take them.

lol.
It's so crazy how these sort of trends end up happening.
Where different customers, want the same thing, all in a row.

Hopefully those customers are able to find good homes for their pets.
Guess we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Nasty Water

Turtles are messy creatures.

Their tanks are rather hard to keep clean.
Especially when they keep knocking their food into the water.
Especially when they keep knocking over the filter so the water can't be filtered well.
Especially when there is more than one turtle in the tank.

Ugh.
For the past couple of weeks, its been a kinda nightmare to have to deal with those turtles.
It feels like I have to do a water change every other day to keep it from a) looking disgusting and b) smelling disgusting.

Plus, it can't be healthy at all to be swimming in water that looks like Chicken Noodle Soup.

Yah. Probably won't be having any of that any time soon due to being scarred by the turtles at work. *shakes head*

But today,
After deeply cleaning out the turtle cage.
I finally came upon a solution to keep the turtles from knocking their food bowl into the water.

I took the gravel in the tank, and piled it up around the food bowl.
So it can't be pushed around as easily.

Hopefully this solves the problem of food in the water.
Hopefully this means that the water can stay cleaner and not as smelly for it's required week of time.

But we'll see.
Turtles are nothing but determined to make messes it seems like.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Water on the Floor

It's never good to come into work and see water on the floor.
I mean, granted, if it's because the floors have just been cleaned, then it's understandable for it to be wet.
But puddles of water on the floor aren't good.
As that indicates something broke and/or overflowed.
Which usually means that something went wrong in my dept.
As that's where most of the water in the store is....

So, when I came into work today.
I saw a rather large puddle of water on the floor.
By our reptile cages.

O.o Which is rather odd....since there's hardly any reason for there to be water on the floor there.
Except....our Turtle tank is located there.
And unsurprisingly, the puddle of water originated from around that particular tank.

O.o
But why the water would flood....that was the confusing thing.
As the cage is self contained, and there is no chance for it to overflow....since there's only a certain amount of water that's located in the cage.
-If the water levels get too low, we add in more water.

Which since there was no obvious reason for the tank to overflow...
I had to wonder if somehow...a leak had formed. A crack or a hole or something.

However,
I discovered, once I had a chance to look at it closer.
That it wasn't a crack at all.

Within the turtle cage we have a filter. One of those that you place in the cage instead of hanging off the back.
Somehow.
Either via a coworker moving the filter forward,
Or the turtles themselves pushing it forward.
But somehow the filter ended up at the front of the tank -where the glass doors that open the cage are.
And got tilted forward.
So that the water within the filter was pouring against the glass and into the seam there...which then seeped onto the floor.
Once the water level in the tank got too low for the filter to be able to pull water into it.
It stopped flooding the floor around the tank.

Which since it happened during the night, leads me to believe that the turtles are the ones who moved the filter.

In any case.
Our cleaning guy quickly cleaned up the water on the floor, while I then moved the filter to its proper location, refilled the tank up, and established that there was no more water leaking out.

Thankfully it seems to be fine now.
The last thing I need is a leaking cage.

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Special Surprise

Ah. ^^
It was a good day today.

As, we've had a turtle in our sick room for a while now....
Like two months.
Why has he been in our sick room for so long?
Because his eyes have been closed.
And haven't opened that entire time.

-Personally I feel like he just went into hibernation mode or something.

But for the past two months we've been treating him, putting medicine on the eyes and medicine in his food.

And finally.
finally!
As I was checking in on him.
I saw it.
His eyes were: OPEN!!

After two months. They'd open!!
Hopefully that means they'll stay open and we'll soon be able to put him back on the floor to sell. ^^

-Sarnic Dirchi

Pick Up Service

We get some odd requests at work.
Some we can fulfill.
Others we cannot.

My coworker told me of an odd request she had.
Which I would now need to fulfill as the customer making the request had not yet shown up and she was off.

The request?

Apparently the customer wanted to buy a Red-Eared Slider Turtle.
But she didn't want to come into the store.
She wanted us to bring the Turtle out to her.
Because she had an SUV full of kids.
And didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of keeping track of them in the store while trying to purchase said turtle.

So my coworker checked with the manager on duty.
To see if we could fulfill the request.
The manager okayed it. Provided that we made sure that the customer paid for the turtle first before we gave it to her.

Lucky me, I wasn't busy when I got a call from the customer.
Who was about to arrive at the store.
So I grabbed the paperwork, and walked outside to the SUV as it pulled into the first slot outside the store.
And had her fill out the necessary forms to buy the turtle, took the cash she handed me.
Went inside, placed the turtle in a carrier, bought the turtle with the money she gave me.
And then went back outside to hand the woman her change and the turtle.

To which she happily took,
And drove off with her car full of young kids.

*shakes head*
I wonder how long it is before we create a 'drive thru' system or a 'pick up' system for these types of customers.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Little Space

I had a customer come into the store today.
Wanting to get one of our Aquatic Turtles.
Which I don't have a problem with.
Since that's why we have them, to sell them.

But when I asked them if they already had a tank at home and what size it was when they said yes.
They told me that they had a 5.5 gallon tank.

Which is way, way too small for our turtles.
As they are 4inches long or longer,
a 5.5 gallon tank would be very very cramped. Hardly any where to move or go.

I don't understand that about customers.
That they don't seem to comprehend that their pet would like to have space to live, to move about.
All they really seem to think about is having the pet, but having it take up as little room and time as possible.
Which, if that's your mindset....you shouldn't get a pet.
Because pets should be like another family member.
Not a pretty decoration to place on a shelf to admire.

So I told them, that they couldn't get a turtle if they had that small of a tank. They would need at least a 20 gallon tank. That way the turtle would have room and everything.
Plus, Aquatic Turtles are a lot of work. More than most people realize as they require water changes a lot more often than regular fish in fish tanks.

Thankfully, they changed their minds about getting the turtle, and opted to get some red claw crabs instead as they fit in a lot better in the tank they already had. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi