Loch Ness Sophie

Town Creek
Sophie hangs in. Her frame shrinks and her tumors grow. She can’t do more than two stairs in a row. Her spine is visible. Muscle mass gone. A quarter mile now is a Very Long walk. But her will to live remains. Yesterday, imitating Nessie.

As I’ve said before, a dog can’t change the world but they can change your world. And if each of us can pass along even a fraction of the unmitigated, world changing love we receive from our dogs? Maybe we can see about that whole changing the world thing.–Will and Eko

Terrapene carolina carolina

eastern box turtle
Box turtles are slow crawlers, extremely long lived, slow to mature, and have relatively few offspring per year. These characteristics, along with a propensity to get hit by cars and agricultural machinery, make all box turtle species particularly susceptible to anthropogenic, or human-induced, mortality.
In the wild, box turtles are known to live over 100 years, but in captivity, often live much shorter lives.–Wikipedia