When we meet Watson, he is walking — slowly, purposefully — through Kirk and Libby George’s large backyard in Hendersonville. His stout and spurred front legs flank the leathery neck and stern face that emerge from his sculpted shell. He pauses to pull some grass from the ground, chewing on it — slowly, purposefully. He does not seem bothered by or remotely interested in the reporter kneeling down to look at him or the photographer lying on the grass to get a shot of him. Maybe he knows he will likely outlive us all.
Watson is a sulcata tortoise, also known as an African spurred tortoise. He is about 9 years old now, and he could live to see 100. If you’re reading this, he could outlast you and quite possibly your children too. That’s due in large part to how well taken care of he’ll be as long as he’s living with the Georges.
Kirk and Libby George with Freja the Brazilian boa and Watson the African spurred tortoise
Kirk is a tattoo artist and co-owner of Island Tattoo downtown (where, full disclosure, he tattooed me last year). Libby is a hair stylist at Local Honey. The two first met around 10 years ago in Alabama, when Kirk tattooed her over the course of a year or so. He only had a few reptiles then. Among them: a king snake he’d had since he was 18, a tegu lizard named Hercules and a bearded dragon named Apollo, the latter of whom has since passed away. Eventually the couple got married and settled in Nashville. Libby, who’d grown up around more traditional pets, warmed up to Kirk’s lifelong love of reptiles, and their suburban menagerie grew.
Watson is just one of the pair’s 23 pets, a brood that also includes three snakes, 17 lizards and two dogs. Watson shares most of the backyard — which includes a fully insulated and heated shelter that Kirk built as well as a small pond — with two tegu lizards (the aforementioned Hercules along with Rex) and the two pups (boxer mix Phaedra and pit bull Ares). The Georges adopted Watson from a tortoise rescue a little more than a year ago. Initially, they thought they’d give him the run of — walk of, really — the whole yard, including a paved portion that includes a driveway with a gate. But then Libby made a good point — although tortoises like Watson can sleep on a dollar bill when they’re born, they can ultimately grow to weigh more than 200 pounds. At some point, one morning when Kirk or Libby went out to the car to leave for work, Watson might be parked right in front of the gate and they’d have a hefty ordeal on their hands. They built a small wooden partition to keep him in the grass.
By now you’re wondering, What does the inside of a home shared with 21 reptiles and two dogs look like? In the Georges’ case, remarkably nice. A bit eccentric, yes, but less so than you might think. There are a couple of collage walls with artworks that could be conversation pieces all on their own, a number of plants and, in a two-car garage that the couple converted to a finished room, a large collection of Star Wars figurines and more than a dozen reptiles in enclosures. Those include a couple of leopard geckos, four bearded dragons, two ackie monitors, a beautiful Brazilian rainbow boa named Freja, the aforementioned king snake (the first reptile Kirk ever owned) and five uromastyx lizards (one of whom is named Baby Yoda). You look at all of this and the tattoos that cover their arms and you begin to pick up on a pattern.
“We’re collectors,” Libby acknowledges.
Kirk and Libby George
But really, to think of their reptiles as just another collection would be to miss the evident care they have for the animals and their attention to the way the snakes and lizards fit into their home. Kirk has built large wooden racks for the enclosures that line the walls of the former garage. One of his snakes, a jumbo carpet python they’ve had for about three years now, lives inside an antique china cabinet Kirk retrofitted into an enclosure.
“I’m at the point now where I’m just like, ‘If I’m gonna have these animals, I’m gonna do it right or not have ’em at all,’ ” Kirk says. “Which, that should be the approach on so many things.”
Libby George
Libby says that when Ludo the chameleon passes away, she probably won’t want another. She clearly loves him — he’s tattooed on her arm — but chameleons are fragile, and early on she often fretted over whether she was doing everything she could to care for him well. (For what it’s worth, he seems to be doing great.) The Georges have acquired most of their animals by adopting or buying them through breeders, an option that ensures they’re not a part of plucking exotic animals out of the wild. It’s a lot of work taking care of the bunch. Their mornings are spent checking heat-lamp bulbs, and Kirk’s iPhone calendar includes the feeding schedule for the various creatures. Standing in their kitchen, Libby reaches over and opens the freezer, picking up fruits, vegetables and meat they’ve separated into individual portions for the larger lizards outside. She opens a drawer and pulls out a bag of frozen mice.
“My fridge is full of tasty things,” she says. Their plan is to put a garden in the backyard so they can grow more of their own pet food.
As interesting as the lizards and snakes are, the conversation eventually comes back to Watson. All of the pets require a bit more attention than, say, a cat. But Watson comes with a particularly serious commitment. For one thing, they’ve had to talk about where he might go when they die — possibly a zoo or tortoise sanctuary, maybe a family with children. There are also the logistical challenges.
“Going to the vet’s not an easy task,” Kirk says. “With him, you’re the center of attention any time you take him anywhere.”
But sometimes that turns out to be a lovely thing. Recently, Kirk decided to let Watson walk around the side of the house and out into the front yard. He called over the fence to his neighbors to tell them. Soon, an elderly couple across the street came out to see the big fella, and another couple on a walk stopped to take in his slow, purposeful stroll.
“I felt like I united the neighborhood,” Kirk says, still seemingly excited about Watson’s unique power. “I was just like, ‘This is crazy, I feel like I’m having a block party because of my tortoise!’ ”
