Sep 5, 2014 4 min read

Ask any police officer about an unusual call he or she has answered and there is usually one that stands out.

That one call for a few officers in Peters Township may have happened the afternoon of Sept. 2 when police were dispatched to retrieve a wandering tortoise. Not just any tortoise, but a 40-pound African Sulcata slogging its way through the township.

Shelly was on the loose and police received several calls from passing drivers about a large turtle in the 500 block of East McMurray Road around 3 p.m. But, being a rather slow-moving tortoise, Shelly was not difficult to corral. There was no high-speed police foot chase over treacherous terrain.

Police called Kym Secreet, the township’s animal control officer, and learned no one reported a missing tortoise, so police drove the reptile in a patrol car to Wet Pets and Friends, 3695 Washington Road in McMurray.

“We were really surprised to see two cop cars pull up in front of the door,” said Wet Pets manager Frank Farruggia. “We didn’t know what was going on.”

And then he saw Shelly.

Estimated to be about 20 years old, Shelly the African Sulcata tortoise returned to the pet store about 15 years after he or she or it was purchased.

Farruggia has been the Wet Pets manager for 17 years and remembers when Shelly was purchased from the store at the former location south of the current store.

“He fit in the palm of my hand then,” Farruggia said. At that time, the tortoise was believed to be a female, hence the name Shelly. But an emergency visit to a veterinarian a few years later determined the she was actually a he.

A call was placed to the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium and police left Shelly in the capable hands of the Wet Pets staff.

Farruggia said a Sulcata tortoise is easy to recognize by the pyramid-like protrusions on the upper shell and the yellowish shell color.

He estimated Shelly weighs about 40 pounds and measures 2-feet by 16 inches.

Farruggia said the owner, whose name was not released, was quick to retrieve Shelly when notified the reptile was at Wet Pets. Farruggia said he was told Shelly has free roam of his home yard on Candlelite Drive during the warmer months, and in the winter, Shelly stays in the heated garage. Shelly didn’t make it far from home before being captured in a yard along East McMurray Road.

Until Shelly was picked up by his owner, Farruggia said the tortoise was placed in a large tub in the store and was given water and fresh vegetables.

“Sulcatas like to eat a lot,” he said.

Shelly is definitely a tortoise, not a turtle or a terapin. Tortoise are land-dwellers that eat low-lying shrubs and grasses. They do not have webbed toes, but rather round, stumpy feet for walking on solid ground.

Turtles have webbed feet and spend most of their lives in the water. Terapins spend time on land and in the water, and prefer to live close to water.

Wet Pets and Friends has often been the repository for unwanted or abandoned creatures that swim, slither or walk on four legs. Some, like Shelly, are reunited with their owners. Others are relinquished voluntarily.

“Mostly, people call about fish and they want to give us fish, like Koi from a pond,” Farruggia said.

There have been some kittens, but the store does not handle dogs.

“When Jerry’s (pet store) closed in Washington, we got a 4-foot iguana named King,” Farruggia said. “We had him for about a year.” The iguana was eventually adopted to a good home.

“We get birds from people too,” he said pointing to two large parrots in a cage near the front door. “But we don’t encourage (people dropping off unwanted animals,)” he added.

Occasionally, a pet owner will call about giving up an unwanted alligator. No way – the store does not accept alligators, Farruggia said firmly.