Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/115375
Sarasota News Leader March 15, 2013 Poor family. Poor Putter! But what wonderfully kind and dedicated staffs at the Bobby Jones Golf Course and Sarasota Jungle Gardens, who rescued him and will allow him to live out the rest of his healthy, but rather lonely life, in a safe environment. Page 78 and claws meant for digging burrows that can be up to 10 feet deep and 30 feet long. Even worse, Putter cannot be litter-box trained. As buyer's remorse sets in, what is the rueful, but well-meaning pet owner to do? The most commonly chosen solution is to dump Putter into the wild; after all, that is where feral animals belong, right? But Putter is an "exotic" non-native-to-Florida species. He cannot be considered an exotic "invasive" species (such as the Spiny Black-Tailed Iguana) because he is quite out of his element here and does not stand a chance of surviving long in the wild, never mind breeding and producing more little flea-infested ground rats just like him. According to the SJG resident Eastern Screech Owl, Squint, a marvelous gossip who eavesdrops on all SJG staff conversations, Putter is a great pet during the first few minutes you bring him home. After that, it is all downhill — literally! Prairie Dogs can only live their lives to the fullest when they are a part of their "coterie/town," the terms for a group of Prairie Dogs. The instinctive ethos of that coterie is that its members live, love and breed, and die It is at this point I wish Charles Dickens had — sometimes even sacrificing their lives — chosen Putter rather than Oliver as his protagonist because you now would be reading for the benefit and survival of that coterie. a true tale of pathos rather than bathos. Here What the new pet owner ends up with is a is this abandoned orphan: He is starving; he feral rodent with little scissors-sharp teeth is deprived of his natural birthright, his fam- Dominic the American Crocodile. File photo