Have you ever lost a pet? (as in the pet escaped)

Good news that you found your snake!

I’m always worried sick when a pet of mine or my friends’ might be missing.

We used to have budgies (3 in total, 2 at any given time) and unfortunately both of my sister’s flew away and never came back, but on different occasions. My own escaped once, but we soon found her on an outer wall of the house. To my knowledge (I wasn’t in the room when any of it happened), the cause was my sister bumping into the cage while the doors were open.

My dog also disappeared from the yard a couple of times, and he has a habit of trying to sneak behind our neighbours’ fences. Thankfully he was back within half an hour each time,whinging at the front doorstep to be let inside!

Hopefully you’ll never have to deal with an escapee again, the feeling is terrible.

 

Sadly yes, I've lost several birds that escaped during a period of many years. Mandarin ducks, Canada geese, Nanday parakeet, Japanese quails, Domestic chickens, Guineafowls etc etc.

Remember to close their cages/enclosures

Once during a storm, one of my aviary doors blew open, but when I came there in the morning all the pigeons and pheasants were still in the aviary not understanding the door was open.

 

This doesn’t count as an escape I don’t think.
A couple of months ago my chickens went missing.
7 chickens. 2 days. No feathers. No one in my neighbourhood has seen them. wwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhaaaaaattttttt...........

 

When my family owned rabbits, we were absolutely horrible owners and did not keep them contained. Eventually the rabbits destroyed a small flower bed on the neighbours' property, and those neighbours let us hear about it. Two of our rabbits disappeared not long after that.
Also, I owned Chinese Painted Quails (1.4) until they all escaped while I was away from home for a weekend. The lid of the box that they lived in got a warped corner, which created an opening that was apparently just large enough for the quails to fly through. I saw no sign of the quails after that; they weren't tame at all, but the local cats would have made short work of them.

 

Glad to hear you found your pet snake again Hipporex !

I used to have (many years ago) two pet snakes , both captive bred by a friend of mine , one was a banded morph Californian kingsnake and the other a beautiful Sinaloan milk snake. The Californian kingsnake was a natural born escape artist whereas the milksnake never once tried to escape it's terrarium.

The kingsnake escaped about twice by squeezing through what I had assumed to be an escape proof lid. I found it easily on the 1st occasion as it was hiding under my pillow/bed covers but the 2nd time was far more traumatic (especially because I was renting and was concerned that he might have slithered into the landladies house) I checked everywhere I just couldn't find it for over a fortnite.

Then one day I was picking up clothes from my laundry basket to put in the washing machine and I felt something strange inside an old t shirt and pulled it out discovered that it was my snake very much alive after his adventure. After that I didn't take any chances and put a lock and key on the terrarium.

Snakes are talented escape artists so make sure you keep your terrarium as escape proof as possible , the best way is with a lock and a key on the sliding door if your tank has one or this can be installed. Exoterra terrariums are particularly good in this regard.

 

Thanks! Glad you found yours as well. I currently keep the lid ducked tape. Tacky? Yes. Does it work? Also yes.

Although when I buy a new tank next year I keep that in mind. (I'm taking him to college with me but to do so I have to get him a smaller tank. Normally I wouldn't approve of this but it'll only be a temporary situation.)

 

I had a Hong Kong warty newt from the mid-1990s to the beginning of this decade. One day, in the late 1990s, he escaped his aquarium, and I had no idea where he was. He was gone for a few days. He ended up being found on the carpet of a closet, still alive, and he lived for many more years.

 

That is a very long lived newt !

 

Especially for a tropical species; some of the newts from colder climates can live longer.

 

Corn snakes tend to be notorious escape artists, I am not surprised yours has escaped a lot. I have never had many pets, but have two kind of funny escapes. My second hamster, named Houdini escaped from the box on the way home from the pet store, chewed right through it. My leopard gecko, Fluffy, has never escaped but I thought it escaped once. Looked all over for it and found out it dug under a climbing structure in his tank and got inside of it.

 

Not exactly a pet, more of a rescue, but I have an interesting story.

My sister texted me one day that her dog caught and tried to eat a baby bird, could I come rescue it? When she sent me a picture of a newly-fledged nuthatch, I went immediately there. The plan was to get it to feed, make sure it wasn't injured or shocked, and release it in the same park where it was found. I took it home in a shoebox and it was so tame (as in unafraid of me). I have never held a tamer bird - and that includes domestic chicken chicks and ducklings. It seemed uninjured, and wanted to climb - I took this as a natural instinct of these tree-climbing birds, so was quite pleased. I took some pictures and resolved to release it soon after.

At the park, I opened the shoebox and the bird wasn't there! I could swear it was there when I left, but it must have flew out just before I left the house. With three cats in the house, I feared the worst, and combed the house to look for any remains or a guilty-looking cat.

I'd begun to lose hope when I remembered it liked to climb, so started looking at the top of walls, curtains, windows, bookcases, anything tall. I eventually found it at the very top of the curtains! I was so relieved. I released it in the back of the garden, where it climbed a medlar tree and out of sight. I still don't know if I did the right thing not releasing it back where it was, but I didn't want to risk losing it again.

 

Years ago I had a yabby that would go for walkies at night. In the morning I would have to look for him and put him back in the tank. I tried everything to stop hi getting out, lowering the water level, putting heavy books on the lid, even giving him a little area out of the water so he could get out of the water if he wanted, but still stay in the tank. Despite everything I tried, he still always got out. One day, he spent a little too much time out of water, and I found him under my bed, all dried up. I buried him in a pot plant.

 

Both of my dogs have escaped multiple times. When I was younger, a dog named buster he started trying to escape when my family moved, he was always trying to get my family's old home, unfortunately, he died a year later . My current dog, Roxy escaped around 6 times in the first year I had her. But recently, when I was leaving my family’s cabin, I was getting her in the car when she jumped out and started bolting down the gravel road and I ran after her barefoot. I chased her 5 houses down until we got to a house with stairs it there back yard. My dog is terrified of stairs so she stopped and I caught her. She hasn’t escaped since.

Another instance is when my albino gerbil Mr. Daddy got out of his terrarium and went into my basement. He hissed at me and then bit me, the bite bled for 20 minutes I eventually got him into his crate and into the terrarium again.

 

So first a few years ago my dad was doing yard work, then when he opened the gate to come to the back my sister's dog Abby ran off. He tried to chase her but he couldn't catch her. Recently we found out that she found a good home with a family that loves her. She also seems to be a better dog, because she was very hyper when we had her, and one time after playing with her I came back with Ian Malcom chest scratches.

My cat Alexandria has never escaped but she hides, so sometimes we think that she's missing, but she's just behind a curtain or something. The most recent instance is when we were moving into our new house. After searching for almost the whole day, we heard meowing. Eventually we found her in a closet. My dad was in the closet earlier then the cat walked in and he didn't notice her and closed the door. This particular instance was scary because we live by a creek full of coyotes and bobcats (See here for the whole list of animals).

 

My older cat who is six years old as of now has gone missing temporarily a few times, some longer than others. At our old house she ran outside of the house when we weren't looking, and weirdly enough ran into an open door in the Neighbors house instead. Only gone a few minutes though.

Those sort of escapes happened multiple times, one time she ran down a street but luckily I am a very good runner and won a track race so I scooped her up from under a vacant car parked next to the street.

And perhaps my favorite of the bunch was when we accidentally left the garage open one evening, and left the Door from the Inside too the garage open as well, and She escaped. We only noticed it around 20 minutes later, and we thought she was a goner.

But strangely enough we found tracks in the snow of our very own cat, and we saw her Literally sleeping on top of the Porch chair out back, and when we got to her she started rubbing me.

 

Had an outdoor cat once… think I only had her for like two or three months before she up and disappeared one morning, never to be seen again.