Sarahw11
New Member
Hi everyone, I'm new here and in search of any help I can get. My 3 toed box turtle of 28 years escaped my house somehow last Friday. He has never been a wild turtle and we think his actual age is around 60 as he was owned by 2 previous families before us. We've taken him outside a few times ( we just moved into this house less than a year ago) but we are always with him. This time a door was left open to the garage. He would have had to tumble onto a landing and then either fall off the side or fall down 5 stairs, both being onto cement. Then somehow get out of the garage with no one seeing him. There was about a 13 hour gap between me last seeing him and realizing he was gone. We always let him walk around the house but the most he has ever done is hide under furniture which I thought he was just doing. Once we realized the severity of it, I panicked. I can't imagine him outside all alone. It's making me go crazy. We have a lot of woods around us but can still see the neighbors. We've had people over for days and nights scouring the woods and looking for any signs. I posted to our neighborhood FBI group. I've set out water dishes and apples and put tuna in a box (read that on another page) to lure him in but there are no signs of him. We even went as far as hiring a K9 team of dogs that searches for missing pets but the best they could do was "maybe" narrow it down to a certain area of 75ft around. Is there anything else I can do? I'm guessing time is of the essence and I can't imagine my life without this little guy that I got when I was only 5 years old. My own son now loves him and keeps asking for him. My heart is broken. Can anyone give me any help or advice? Would he have left the property or just hid? I am in Massachusetts and the weather has been around 65° during the day but still pretty cool at night. It also rained really hard Sunday night. That just tore me apart. I would literally appreciate anything anyone can tell me. Thank you in advance and thank you for reading this incredibly long post!