UAE resident loses pet giraffe

A Dubai resident has appealed to Yahoo! Maktoob readers to help her find her beloved – and by no means tiny - pet, which went missing over the weekend.

Avril Fritue woke on Friday morning and looked out of the window of her villa expecting to see her slender-necked buddy, Trompe, her five-year-old pet giraffe. But to her shock, the animal had gone.

“I could not believe my eyes,” said Avril, a French librarian who moved to the region when she lost her job in Paris in 2008. “At first I just thought it was because I was tired, and my eyes were blurred.

“Sometimes he is hard to see among the trees. But when I looked again I realised that Trompe had vanished.”

TALL SPOTTY PET

“He has gone for walks before, but it’s been a day now and I can’t find him anywhere.”

She said she had spoken to neighbours, but said no one seemed to have noticed Trompe despite his size.

“What I do not understand is how he managed to leave the garden,” Fritue explained. “He might be 3.5 metres tall, but I don’t see how he could have climbed the wall, or why he would want to.”

“I guess he must have jumped after being startled by something. He didn’t like to be surprised and sometimes the sparrows flying would give him the jitters.”

GORILLA AND CROCODILE

Fritue has been a long-time lover of exotic animals; she came across Trompe shortly after moving to Dubai and the pair immediately hit it off. When she lived in Paris she used to keep crocodiles and a pet gorilla, but said she had to get rid of them because they were getting too big for her townhouse garden.

“I live right on the side of the desert, so I guess Trompe is safe. I know he went that way because I saw his footprints in the sand, which is a relief. “

Have you seen Trompe? He is described as 3.5 metres tall, with an orange complexion and two stubby little horns on his head. If so email uvebeenfooled@yahoo.com.