- Okay, I'm rolling.
- Okay
- What do you think, K? - It looks good.
- So you feel like you're ready to get started?
- Yup.
- Yeah, okay. - Yup.
(quirky music)
(dramatic exhale)
- He's not really happy with where he is.
He kind of feels like he lives in inferior housing
and it is kind of a prison.
It does make him really feel inadequate and sad.
- Snowy is our family's pet turtle.
He lives in the corner of our basement.
- If there's anyone to feel guilty it's you, Will.
- Yeah, you're a horrible person.
(laughs)
- [Will] It starts with me.
I was seven years old.
- He had no friends.
So my dad thought it'd be a good idea
to get him a little buddy.
(quirky music)
- He doesn't really say much or move around at all.
Sometimes I think he's dead and I go to tap him on the back
and then he wakes up and he's alive.
- Did you ever think about taking him to college?
- No, the thought never crossed my mind.
- That says it all.
- But you didn't really arrange
for anything better for him?
- Oh, like dad coming down every day?
- That's actually out of his good heart.
- Yeah and I saw that and that was great.
I didn't leave it out to die.
- You're kind of a scumbag
- Alright. Snowy.
We're going to clean the tank, buddy.
Alright. You're going to hang out there for a little bit.
Definitely needs to be changed.
(garage door opening)
- I remember putting the tank
in the passenger seat of Larry's car
and saying, it's on you.
This is now your job.
- He would be really heartbroken if Snowy died.
So that's why he makes sure to keep it alive.
- Larry's kind of a turtle in himself.
It makes a lot of sense.
Two peas in a pod
- Done with the outside part.
- All right, Snowy.
Here it goes
I don't know if you even appreciate it's clean,
but there you go.
So why are you making this movie?
Like what was your motivation?
- We want to help Snowy.
- Was that really your motivation?
- Yeah!
- You really felt badly for the little sucker?
Should we go out and see if we can dig up a worm?
Worm time.
(leaves rustling)
I don't see any worms,
no worms for Snowy.
I usually find them when I run,
it's just in the winter time,
it's a little bit more difficult.
The worms are deeper,
but during the summer I'll actually carry them,
I'll put them in my hand or I'll bring a bag and then I'll
bring him a bunch of worms.
Cause he definitely loves his worms.
Where to find worms.
- Thank you for calling your neighborhood Petco
where you can get complete care
- My wife actually bought him from the pet store
not knowing that he'd be living for 24 more years,
so I'm not sure of his exact age, but it's at least 24.
- Boy this is a long hold, huh?
(on hold music)
- Thank you for calling the Ardmore Petco...
- Yeah. I have a question for you,
Do you carry earthworms?
- Yes and we also have the night crawlers.
- The night crawlers? That'll be a real feast.
Which ones are the night crawlers?
- The orange ones are 18 counts and the green ones are 12.
(mumbles)
All right. We got it.
My Snowy memories are the happy look on his face,
every time I throw him a big earthworm.
Oh my God,
this is going to be amazing.
He can be in his shell and not moving around,
and then you drop a big earthworm
and he is just in attack mode.
He looks totally excited.
This is his hunting moment.
There he goes!
See he missed it.
He just has to get it.
Come on Snowy, you can do it before this thing disappears.
How much easier can I make it for you?
Maybe he's a little anxious because he's being filmed
and he's a little self-conscious.
- We're here all day.
- Well, this could take all day
(upbeat music)
Oh come on.
There we go.
Maybe it's harder to hunt when they're older.
He's like really having a hard time.
Way to go, Snowy.
This is like a Michelin three-star restaurant for him.
(Snowy vomits)
Oh no, Snowy. Come on.
Jesus, he just barfed it up.
(quiet laughing)
- Okay there's wine on the table
(excited talking)
- I want to say to my family,
I love you all,
and I'm so happy to be with you.
- Cheers!
(laughing)
- I think he's pretty happy
because I think he likes the quiet life.
- There is a little bit of a disconnect because look at this
poor freakin' turtle and you're saying this turtle's happy.
So how can you account for that?
- Because you can be fine, but you can always be better.
(Latin music)
- I'm not sure he's ever had a well turtle check
cause I think he's pretty well.
Cause if he wasn't well,
he probably would have died a long time ago.
(birds chirping)
- Hey, little Snowy.
Let's get his weight.
147 grams.
And then you haven't noticed
anything different with his shell?
- No.
- No sign of any cracks?
Everything looks great.
So check our little muscles on our little back legs.
Say that one looks good.
And we'll look at the underside. Check your shell down here.
Oh dear. You're leaving me a present?
- Wow, I didn't even realize that that much comes out.
(laughing)
- That's pretty impressive.
- So wait, you bring the turtle in.
He had a rectal...
(laughs)
and cut.
Poor turtle.
- So what happened?
- Well, the turtle developed rectal prolapse,
where their intestines were coming,
I think she was so excited that she,
in a bad way excited,
she was so stressed out that
- She or he?
- He, that her intestines came out her
- His intestines
- His intestines came out
and ultimately went back in.
(bells chiming)
(string music)
- Should we go into the tortoises?
- Yeah.
- The tortoises will get excited.
Hello everybody!
Look it's dinner time!
- Did you guys fly to London to see a turtle expert?
- Yeah.
- Are you nuts?
- Come on.
Come on.
We are currently in the cold blooded cognition lab,
where I explore all aspects of cognition in reptiles,
how animals perceive the world, how they learn,
how they remember and how they use that
in their everyday lives.
(upbeat music)
Number one is Moses. He started all of this work.
And so he is of course, number one.
Number two here is Wilhelmina. She's very inquisitive.
Number three is Aldis. Number eight is Charles Darwin.
Nine is Mozart. And number 300 is Gerald Butler.
As humans, we do like to see similarities
between us and other animals.
The pro is that if we start to see reptiles as more like us,
we will start potentially care for them better and care what
happens to them more.
But also we need to remember that we can't and shouldn't
treat them like mammals.
Night night everybody. You sleep well.
Yes.
- Is there anything you can tell us about
Snowy's general state of health?
- So you can see he's not looking too happy in this.
He's quite far in. His beak is broken.
So that's probably not a great sign.
We would expect the beak to come down like this.
It's not clear that simply survival
shows you're doing something right.
It shows you're not doing everything wrong,
but these guys are really remarkable survivors.
- Do you think snowy has a capacity for happiness?
- It's difficult to say whether a turtle
has a capacity for happiness
because it's difficult to sort of say what happiness is.
If it is to have desires and have your desires met,
then certainly because they would have a desire for food.
You can meet that. They would have a desire for sun.
You can meet that. So they do potentially,
if that's what for you, happiness means,
- Do you think Snowy recognizes Larry?
- We found that that the tortoises could remember
the face of their carers and the voice of their carers.
So yes, I think Snowy probably could recognize Larry.
What Snowy I think would really enjoy having
would be a bigger area
with lots of more things that he can explore and absolutely
take him for those walks outside. He's going to love it.
(heavenly music)
- I think he's like, wow, check it out.
His world just got a thousand times bigger.
Little fresh air, nice breeze, beautiful day.
Great day to be a turtle.
He thinks he's escaping or just exploring?
All the things that we've learned on this journey have put
him in a different light. Before this all started,
it was just oh okay,
I'm going down to feed the turtle. Now it's like Snowy.
I know what's going to happen there.
There's no big drops in the cage.
(triumphant music)
- Well it is a turtle
and we're all pretending to know what the
turtle's thinking or doing,
but that's what makes it fun.
- If Snowy outlives you, what would he say at your funeral?
- He would say he was a good guy and a loyal master.
He took care of me every day
when there are times where nobody else
was paying him any attention.
- He would honor you.
- I think so.
(happy music)
♪ Our love ♪
♪ Won't die ♪
♪ Can't die ♪
♪ This kind of love was meant for you and I ♪