The big question that I get most often when I share this story is, "What’s an emu?" Let’s start there — an emu is a big bird that resembles an ostrich, only smaller. They have powerful legs and talons, and if frightened, can do a lot of damage with their strong limbs. They are a flight-less bird, and have very tiny wing appendages in relation to their enormous body. And boy are they fast!

The call came in from the sheriff’s department on Monday, November 2nd. Could Happy Trails help capture a stray emu that took up residence in a soybean field in Rootstown?

You would think we would be used to strange calls by now. We’re close, but not quite there. I put in a call to our county humane officer, Jennifer Sanderson, who agreed to help out. The next call went to neighbor, Kevin Bragg. We knew nothing about this emu. Would he be friendly or would he try to kill us? We’d better have some additional back-up. "Kevin, can you grab your lariatt and help us lasso an emu?" "Be right there," came the reply.

When we arrived at the scene, the concerned property owner was chatting with the sheriff. They had lost sight of the giant bird.

However, after walking for only a few minutes, Kevin spotted a long black neck outlined against the brown soybeans in the distance. Then we heard a gunshot. "We’d better hurry!" We hoped that someone wasn’t shooting at the handsome bird that looked like it was a long way away. The neck and head seemed to float effortlessly about the soybeans, and would change direction every so often. We all giggled nervously. How would we catch this beast? "I think we should call it Nessie", I blurted out. Kevin and Jen were on the same wave length with me. "Because it looks like the lock ness monster from here, huh?" someone threw out there. More nervous giggling. Armed with a bucket of grain, lead ropes and a lariat, we slowly worked our way about a quarter mile into the soybean field toward the mound of feathers that continued to loom larger the closer we got. We made jokes and tried to make light of the situation, wondering which one of us it would kick first.

Nessie set his sights on Jen. He walked toward her with purpose. "What do I do? Oh crap..." "Grab him!" I suggested. "Ya right," Came the reply. I could read between the lines. That meant "no way". I reached out to the bird with the grain bucket, fearing the worst. He was very interested in the grain! Good deal! Kevin worked his way over to us and slowly inched the lariat over the birdie’s head and down to it’s barrel. Giant birdie didn’t care. "Now what do we do?"

"Let’s all pick a side and try to walk him out of the field," I offered. I got some funny looks. I put my arms around Nessie’s neck and stomach. Kevin held the lariat and stood on the other side of the bird, and Jen brought up the rear. "Thanks for helping us, Kevin," I mentioned gratefully.

"What, are you kidding? I wouldn’t have missed this for the world! Every time I go on a Happy Trails rescue, there’s always a good story involved!" came the reply. Great.

Ten steps later Nessie had to sit down and rest. In the distance we could see the neighbor with her binoculars. I’m sure this truly wasn’t a site that you would see daily in your neighborhood. So that was our pattern — walk so many steps, then stop and rest. Calm, soothing voices. "Good emu! It’s ok, Nessie!" The distance to the car looked like a long, long way away. We were told that there was a barn that we could coral the emu in until we could bring a trailer. After what seemed like forever, we arrived in the grassy yard of the person who reported the stray bird. "Which building are you talking about?" we asked, as we looked around but not focusing on a barn. She pointed a ways down the street. We had just already walked the emu about a quarter mile. "Heck no," Kevin said. OK, he said a lot more than that, but that basically covered it. There was no way we could walk another half-mile escorting the unpredictable emu, let along across a creek. Good grief, now what would we do with it?

"Open the hatch back," Kevin told Jen.

"What? No way!"

"Seriously, open the hatchback." Hatchback opened, and we walked Nessie over to the vehicle. He was more concerned about the texture and color of the black top we were standing on. It was scary. As Nessie inspected the station wagon, Kevin picked the emu up and helped him into the back of the car. The hatch came down quickly, and Kevin jumped into the back seat of the vehicle to help keep Nessie in place. Whoosh! A large, dangerous foot with sharp claws came whizzing past his head. He grabbed the foot and put it back where it belonged. Thank you’s were exchanged with the sheriff and we all hopped in and Jen took off.

Driving down the street we created quite the spectacle. The back windows were partially down for the comfort of the emu. The giant bird took up most of the cargo area, and his fuzzy head looked straight at the people either behind or beside us.

Once back at Happy Trails, we unloaded our precious cargo and settled Nessie in to a horse stall. All was well and he was safe. He was friendly (thank God) and very polite. He didn’t try to harm anyone!

Several days later we received a call from some folks who we already knew — a great family who truly loved and cared for their family pets — and they had lost Nessie. It ends up that the Nessie’s name was Ramsey. Some logging activity on a neighboring property frightened the big bird, and he broke through his fencing without his family realizing at first what happened. The were frantic with worry, as he was their sole surviving emu. Earlier in the year, neighborhood dogs had attacked and fatally injured Ramsey’s other emu and rhea friends. Ramsey meant the world to his family!

The broken fencing was repaired, and Ramsey is now back home with his family who loves him.

There could have been a lot more drama to this story, and we are grateful that there wasn’t. We were relieved that no-one shot the gentle, inquisitive emu.

We’d like to thank Ramsey Nessie for teaching us how to work with an emu. We’d like to thank the folks who discovered him and called for help. And we’d also like to thank Matt Bellar and his family, Ramsey’s family, for caring so very much for the animals in their lives! Ramsey Nessie is one lucky emu!