Have you seen a 5-foot-5 emu running around? A Puyallup area family is missing theirs

Signs stapled to neighborhood telephone poles often serve as a convenient alert network for people searching for a beloved missing animal, typically a cat or dog. Since Saturday morning, a Puyallup-area family has asked the public to be on the lookout for something else: an emu.

Sherry Cassidy said Monday that her daughter’s emu, who is simply called “emu” or “emu, emu,” went missing two days earlier — a discovery made upon the family finding their chain-link fence opened. Cassidy said she isn’t certain whether someone had gone into their yard to try to take the animal or for something else.

Two emus were, in fact, gone from the premises but one was later found in a wooded area near their home, according to Cassidy, who said she hoped the other would be found somewhere similar — and not, more dangerously, traversing down a road.

“It’s not like a dog that you can, ‘come on, rover,’” she said. “You can’t just call them in.”

Cassidy said she has notified local animal control, put the word out on social media and posted roughly 100 flyers in an effort to track down the missing emu.

The family has received a few reports thus far. The most recent described an emu on the road in the area of 62nd Avenue East and 112th Street East, just south of Puyallup and not far from where the family lives.

“Emu,” or “emu, emu,” stands about five-feet-five-inches tall if it’s looking you in the face, according to Cassidy. The animal, who Cassidy believes is female, is grayish brown with a black head, big eyes and a really big beak. It’s friendly and attracted to rattling noises because the sound suggests food, such as boxed cereal, she said. It also might be drawn to bodies of water, including ponds or kiddie pools.

Cassidy noted that emus were not the easiest to contain, even if approachable, because of their size and speed. She is asking anyone who sees the emu to just keep an eye on it and call her or her daughter, who’s had the animal for around two years.

It’s also apparent that emus, unlike cats or dogs, aren’t a familiar sight for everybody. A neighbor reported to Cassidy that she thought she saw the lost animal in a pond. It turned out to be a great blue heron.

“We’re looking for something 100 times bigger,” Cassidy said.

To report a sighting of the emu, call Cassidy at 253-431-2073 or her daughter, Rachelle, at 253-495-9477.