AUSTIN, Texas – ***Editor’s note***: On Tuesday, Nov. 25, the owner said she heard a loud knock on her door at 4 a.m. When she opened the door, Charlene was there unharmed.
With Thanksgiving just days away, one Austin family is dealing with a holiday headache they never expected: their pet turkey has vanished.
Pet turkey vanishes from Austin home
Local perspective:
On Monday, Nov. 24, Summer Arrambide reached out to FOX 7 looking for answers after she noticed her female friend was missing. Â Â
Arrambide has her fair share of animals with dozens of dogs, ducks, geese, and chickens, but she only has one turkey named Charlene.
“I know there’s a lot of them,” Arrambide said. “These guys are my babies.”
Arrambide purchased Charlene more than a year ago from Callahan’s General Store when she was just a chick.
“She was just a little baby,” Arrambide said.
Around 3 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 24, Arrambide heard her dogs and geese making some noise, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for the family. She says when she got back up around 7 a.m. to check on her animals, she noticed Charlene was gone.
“I couldn’t find her, and we looked everywhere, everywhere for her,” Arrambide said. “There was no sign of an attack. Nobody broke in.”
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Arrambide admitted that she started to worry about Charlene in the backyard.
“I mentioned that to my husband. I said you know I should probably keep a closer eye on Charlene because of Thanksgiving,” Arrambide said. “You never know, you never know, and then boom, two days later she’s missing.”
Since moving to the house, the family says homeless people have actually walked through the backyard, sometimes sleeping down in the riverbed at the back of the property.
“It’s a very real possibility that somebody took her just to take her, you know,” Arrambide said. “Not saying that they’re going to eat her, but I mean you never know.”
Without any security camera footage or evidence of a break-in, Arrambide said she likely won’t file a police report.
For now, she’s holding out hope for her beloved Charlene to return home before the holiday.
“I just hope she gets brought back. If somebody did take her that they would bring her back.”
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Alec Nolan