Pet tortoise, missing over 2 months, found 100 feet from Oklahoma home

PIEDMONT, Okla. ( KFOR ) — After more than two months of searching, an Oklahoma woman’s pet tortoise had been found, only about 100 feet from home.

In late August, Cherrie Zaidi put her two African Spur Tortoises, fondly named Phineas and Ferb, outside of their Piedmont, Oklahoma, home, as she usually did. Normally, she explained, she would check on them every couple of hours.

But, as Zaidi explained, she “got stuck on the phone that morning.”

By the time she was able to go look, Ferb had played a shell game. The tortoise shimmied its way under an area of their fence before turning tail and taking off. From there, a search was on.

“I searched everything, we drove around in circles,” Zaidi said.

Phineas and Ferb had lived with Zaidi’s family for nearly four years. In December 2020, Zaidi’s husband drove to Tulsa and brought them home.

“He came home with them in little mailboxes and a tank, everything I needed to get started,” she said.

People from Piedmont came in to help search.

It had been nine weeks and four days with Ferb by the time her husband noticed what he thought was a clump of grass about 100 feet into a field behind their home. That is until it moved in a Ferb-like fashion.

“He couldn’t hardly get the phone dialed to tell me all about it,” Zaidi said, recounting the moment. “It was such a relief.”

Zaidi came home once she heard the news and just like that, they were reunited and it felt so good.

“It has been a long, long road and I sure did miss him,” Zaidi told Nexstar’s KFOR.

Ferb was back home and taking a bath on Thursday.

You won’t find anyone more excited about that than Zaidi.

“I can’t explain to you any of that,” she said. “It’s just a big relief.”

Zaidi said she is taking extra precautions around her yard to ensure that Phineas or Ferb doesn’t escape again.

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