Thankfully, it ended on a happy note.
An unusual pet kangaroo was spotted hopping around a residential area in Texas this week, one of two that escaped their enclosure, baffling locals and police who responded to the bizarre call.
The Lufkin Police Department received a strange report Sunday morning of an Australian marsupial walking down a street in the small Texas town, located about 120 miles northeast of Houston.
“Ma’am, I don’t know who to call,” a confused male caller tells the operator. Video released by authorities.
“I’m on Fuller Springs Drive right now … and a kangaroo came up the road and crossed here,” he said.
“Does it look like it belongs there?” the dispatcher asks.
The man said he and his wife initially thought it was a dog.
“I was on my way to breakfast and I happened to look and thought, ‘Oh, what a kangaroo!’ and then a kangaroo started hopping down the road,” the caller said.
Footage shows the kangaroo charging right in front of a police car as officers respond to the scene.
Police said two other kangaroos had escaped from the same property that day, but both were safely returned to their owners, a police spokesman said. He told Fox News.
“It was a call no one could have expected and once again proves that life is stranger than fiction,” the spokesman said.
Shelby Rowley, who owns two kangaroos named Hopper and Red, said in a Facebook post that the escape was her “worst nightmare” and she feared they had been injured or killed.
She told police that her husband had left the gate to the enclosure open.
“Thankfully, after assessing the situation and counting all the kangaroos, it was determined that only the two males were missing,” she wrote, adding, “I love my kangaroos and am so glad they are back safe and well.”
Texas is one of the few states in the United States where it is legal to keep dogs as pets.
