Back in 1973 we brought two tortoises home from a summer in Holland, along with the two children, dachshund, and two cats we'd started out with, as well as 7.5 kilos of flower bulbs, 20 small rhododendrons, and a box of assorted plants. Details of our arrival at Kennedy Airport are another story. The tortoises spent winters in the bathroom, summers in a cage outdoors. They did indeed enjoy slugs, and would come hustling (well, about as well as a tortoise can scurry) to be hand-fed, getting gooey and foamy around their beak-like mouths. One summer the raccoons carried Kleine away and ate her. Grote was banged up, with a colorful scute over her bony carapace knocked off. I took her to our children's orthodontist, who did a neat patch with monomer / polymer plastic. I was sworn never to reveal his name, lest every ill tortoise in Fairfield County, Connecticut show up on his doorstep. Judy in New Jersey where winter has returned with better than 3 inches of accumulated snow and sleet unplowably adhered to our driveway