The majority of my life I've also taken care of turtles and tortoises. I just thought I'd throw this info out there to anyone thinking of getting one who also has a cat.
I had a small russian tortoise named Steve for a while, during which time, my girlfriend had two cats (brother and sister) aptly named Wednesday and Pugsley. The scary thing is that I thought of the name, and they ended up adhering to not only the personalities, but wednesday was very skinny and pugsley turned into a rather large pudgy cat...
They both at one point or another found their way into Steve's aquarium. Russian tortoises aren't water based, but its easier to keep them in an aquarium than something like a hamster cage.
Believe it or not, but apparently a tortoise (and I'd assume a typical turtle as well) can hold their own fairly well against a cat in the event of an attack.. One of them was lightly playing with him one day, and he got ahold of them pretty good. After that I believe the cats and Steve formed a mutual agreement to not bother each other.
Although one thing I found very funny... I have a lot of computer equipment in my apartment, so I keep the temperature pretty cold. Steve had a high watt heat lamp in his aquarium, and occasionally, I'd walk into the living room and both cats, as well as Steve would all be laid out in the aquarium basking in the heat lamp...
I had a small russian tortoise named Steve for a while, during which time, my girlfriend had two cats (brother and sister) aptly named Wednesday and Pugsley. The scary thing is that I thought of the name, and they ended up adhering to not only the personalities, but wednesday was very skinny and pugsley turned into a rather large pudgy cat...
They both at one point or another found their way into Steve's aquarium. Russian tortoises aren't water based, but its easier to keep them in an aquarium than something like a hamster cage.
Believe it or not, but apparently a tortoise (and I'd assume a typical turtle as well) can hold their own fairly well against a cat in the event of an attack.. One of them was lightly playing with him one day, and he got ahold of them pretty good. After that I believe the cats and Steve formed a mutual agreement to not bother each other.
Although one thing I found very funny... I have a lot of computer equipment in my apartment, so I keep the temperature pretty cold. Steve had a high watt heat lamp in his aquarium, and occasionally, I'd walk into the living room and both cats, as well as Steve would all be laid out in the aquarium basking in the heat lamp...