Leland 🥬
cricket_soup
- Created
- 3 years, 4 months ago
- Creator
- cricket_soup
- Favorites
- 0
Profile
- Food
- Swimming
- Chewing
- Mud
- Thunder
- Boats
- Humans
- Pond plants getting stuck in his fur
Leland can't speak or bark, he makes sort of grunting sounds and huffs through his nostrils to communicate. He is a scientific anomaly found as a pup on the shore in Florida by Melon. Melon has large plot of land where he grows subsistence crops (lettuce, carrots, peas, etc.) as well as crops for profit (peppers, tomatoes, watermelon). He also raises goats and chickens. Melon gets his other food from his neighbors and the farmers' market in town. The two of them share a small farmhouse. Leland helps by weeding and herding the livestock. He swims and sometimes sleeps in their pond. He enjoys sea grass, but is generally unable to leave their property out of fear of being taken away for study.
Technically, he's capable of ingesting anything manatees or dogs can. However, he has manatee teeth so he has a lot of trouble eating meat. He eats vegan because of this and because Melon does as well. His favorite food is carrots. Melon brushes and bathes him often because his sheepdog fur isn't ideal for swimming. The dock in their pond has brush bristles on the bottom so Leland can rub them and get the dead skin off his tail. His favorite toy is a hula hoop that he swims through. Leland has manatee eyes, so sees very poorly. He goes mostly by smell, hearing, and vibrations. He uses his prehensile lips (like an elephant's trunk) to pull up weeds or harvest crops to eat.
- He has thick sheepdog fur on most of his body. He has none on his tail (he has rough manatee skin there) and much shorter fur (like a devon rex) on his muzzle.
- He has small whiskers all over his tail and longer ones on his muzzle.
- He can seal and unseal his nostrils in order to hold in air under water.
- His tail moves up and down, not side to side.
- He likes to sleep in a basket or the grass at night, but often naps in the water.
- His lips can move individually (like our left and right hands).
- His eyes are very small and close in a circular fashion, like a camera shutter. He can see mostly globs of color (fun fact: if a manatee took a human eye test, it would be classified as blind). His hair usually covers his eyes, which is fine because he mostly uses his other senses, but sometimes Melon clips or ties it up for him.
- He has manatee teeth -- marching molars. They replace themselves periodically. Melon has a large collection of Leland's old teeth. They do this because the sand they end up biting when they eat seagrass grates at their teeth. Leland doesn't really have this problem since he doesn't have access to seagrass, but they fall out anyway. Melon uses them to make jewelry and crafts.
- He can hold his breath for about four minutes and replace 90% of his lung capacity in only one breath.
- His tail is very heavy, it's about 200 pounds. He can't fully lift it when gravity is against him, so he doesn't move it much, just keeps it from ripping up the grass underneath it by holding it up a little bit. It only really moves when he's in the water. He moves slowly because of this, but he has no back pain or anything from the weight -- he's deceptively strong.
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