An adventurous young tortoise has turned up safe and sound after going AWOL for almost three weeks.
Topsy’s disappearance from an Ellesmere Port garden sparked an appeal in the Pioneer and even a sniffer dog was recruited to the cause to find the much-loved pet.
He had been staying with owner Rachel Evans’ nan while Rachel and her family were on holiday, but managed to scarper away for an impromptu game of hide and seek while Rachel’s nan turned her back for a few seconds to answer the telephone.
But happily, her gardener spotted Topsy sidling along the patio some 18 days later on Wednesday (July 6).
Whether Topsy was on his way back from an epic odyssey around Ellesmere Port or had in fact never left the parameters of the garden we may never know, but Rachel, her husband Marc and their little girl Maya are undoubtedly overjoyed by his return, having been warned by experts that his chances of survival were slim.
Rachel said: “No one can believe it!
“Thank you to all the wonderful people who contacted me, several people sent me possible leads of missing tortoise pictures and contacted me with ideas to try, one person even offered to help with her dog who is really good at sniffing out adventurous little tortoises.
“But after three weeks, the bad weather and the fact he was only a baby, even the real tortoise experts that contacted me said it was unlikely he would still be alive.”
But Rachel and Marc had some explaining to do to five-year-old Maya, who was blissfully unaware of Topsy’s antics after the extended family managed to find a similar-looking tortoise to save her any distress so she was understandably a little confused when the real Topsy surfaced.
“We told Maya that her Ninny loved babysitting so much that she had decided to buy one for herself, and that we are tortoise-sitting until she has all the bits and bobs for his house.
“We have decided that now we have a happy ending it’s one to tell her on her 18th birthday.
“And my nan is really happy to get the other little tortoise back because she didn’t really want to hand him over. She’s naming him Cliff, as a die-hard fan.”
