06/08/2026
I was convinced a fox had eaten Spaghetti. 💔🦖
Thursday night, Spaghetti and Meatball escaped while we were cleaning their pen. We searched for hours into the early morning with no luck before finally deciding to get a few hours of sleep and start again at daylight.
Overnight it poured rain. Friday morning, we were walking through 4-foot-tall pasture in the pouring rain when I caught a glimpse of Meatball’s little head moving out of the corner of my eye. I was so relieved. I was certain Spaghetti would be hunkered down right beside her.
He wasn’t.
We got Meatball safely back into her pen, but she was so sad without him. We searched all Friday morning and still couldn’t find any sign of Spaghetti.
That afternoon, Thermal Drone Recovery came out and searched for a couple of hours with no luck. Huge thank you to Joey for taking the time to help us look! At that point I felt completely defeated. With the foxes we’ve been dealing with lately, all I could think about was how Spaghetti may have become dinner overnight.
Then Friday night, more than 24 hours after he disappeared, we got a call from our awesome neighbors. Our mail carrier had told them she saw a baby emu cross the road around 1:45 that afternoon.
I immediately thought it had to be Spaghetti since we’d found Meatball that morning, but I still had doubts because the drone never picked him up. Our neighbors called her back to get the exact location, and it turned out he had been seen WAY farther away than I thought possible. In fact, I had specifically told the drone operator not to bother searching that far because there was “no way” Spaghetti had traveled that distance.
Turns out I was wrong. 😂
Around 10:30 that night, we drove to the area where he was last seen with thermal binoculars. Nothing. As a last-ditch effort, I pulled up baby emu sounds on YouTube and started playing them from my phone. Spaghetti and Meatball use those sounds to find and comfort each other all the time.
We slowly drove, stopped, listened, and repeated.
Then we heard it.
A baby emu calling back.
It wasn’t coming from my phone. It wasn’t coming from the pasture.
It was coming from the timber.
We looked at each other and instantly knew it was him.
We quietly slipped into the woods while I continued playing the sounds, hoping he’d think Meatball was calling for him. Standing there in the pitch black, we suddenly heard something running toward us.
Then it stopped right at our feet.
I asked Ethan if he was ready, flipped on my flashlight, and there he was.
Spaghetti. 🖤
Ethan scooped him up, and we rushed him home. Watching Spaghetti and Meatball reunite made every mile walked, every soaked boot, and every hour of searching worth it.
Let’s just say our first exotic animals have been quite the adventure. 🦖❤️
