DALLAS, Texas — An adolescent wallaby has been reunited with its owner after it escaped the yard of a home in the Lakewood area Wednesday morning.
The wallaby, named Muggsy, took social media by storm. After all, it's not every day you see a marsupial hopping around Dallas.
Casey and Tim Tiernan first spotted it near their home off of Vickery Boulevard during their morning walk and later found it in their driveway. "We first saw it two or three houses down," Tim Tiernan said. "But then we got back from our walk and saw it next to my wife's car."
"At first we thought it was a dog, but when it started hopping I said out loud, 'That's a kangaroo!'"
After a quick internet search, the Tiernans believed the little guy could also be a wallaby. Either way, neither kangaroos nor wallabies are native to Texas, so they took pictures of it and posted them online to find a possible owner.
"I put it on Nextdoor and the Lakewood Facebook page, and it, of course, it blew up," Casey Tiernan said.
"It just got very exciting very fast," she said.
Soon, everyone was talking about the Wallaby hopping around Lakewood. "It was amazing how fast the word spread," Tim Tiernan said. "Some people were even driving down the street asking, 'Where's the 'roo?'"
The Tiernans called Dallas Animal Services after posting the photos to social media, and soon several officers took the wallaby to DAS' main offices.
Whitney Hanson, a manager with DAS, said that her team was fully able to care for Muggsy. "It's definitely a change of pace for us, but it's not uncommon for us to encounter a wallaby," Hanson said.
Luckily, Muggsy's owner saw all the buzz and headed to DAS to be reunited.
The wallaby had only been in the care of DAS for a few hours by then.
Hanson didn't reveal the owner's name, but said that she was told Muggsy spends a majority of his time on a ranch close to Oklahoma.
She added that the owner told her that the two were temporarily staying in Lakewood and that Muggsy escaped through a fence Wednesday morning when he was let out to go to the bathroom.
It's not prohibited to have a wallaby as a pet in Dallas, but you do need an approved permit.
Hanson said that Muggsy's owner didn't have a permit, but told WFAA the animal was released to him with a warning because he was only temporarily in Dallas. "Just as he was getting settled in, he was able to go home," Hanson said.
Call it an escape that the Tiernans will never forget.
"He just went for a little joyride," Casey Tiernan said. "Yeah, I'm not expecting to see another kangaroo on my walk tomorrow morning," her husband added.