LENNOX — Two Texas siblings count their blessings after a South Dakota family found their runaway turtle.
Scoot is a 12-year-old desert box turtle owned by Charis Knobloch, 9, and Malick Knobloch, 5, from El Paso, Texas. She came to the family with the singular oddity of missing a foot on one of her legs, but still managed to wriggle away from an outdoor enclosure on June 30 while the family was staying with her grandmother in Lennox.
In the summer, the Knoblochs move to Lennox to escape the brutal Texas heat. They stay with relatives who live in town before returning to El Paso just before school starts.
But Scoot was kept in an outdoor cage during their stay. A chain link fence surrounds an empty kennel, and thick metal cylinders lining the bottom of the cage prevent anything a little smaller than a turtle from sneaking underneath – in most cases.
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“This turtle, it’s super shaky so it can move. We weren’t sure when it came out or which direction it went in,” said Sharita Knobloch, the siblings’ mother. “Although turtles have a reputation for being slow, they can cover a good distance in a short amount of time.”
Sometime on June 30, Scoot somehow slipped under the hose or otherwise found a way to emancipate herself from her summer home.
The enclosure had a small opening that Scoot could have escaped through—a gap between the ground and the underside of part of the fence—but it was smaller than the turtle was tall. Sharita Knobloch estimated that Scoot would have struggled to squeeze her shell through the gap and said she didn’t notice any other openings in the enclosure.
After an afternoon scouring the area with neighbors, the Knoblochs believed Scoot had really left town.
Sharita Knobloch posted on the Latest Facebook group in Lennox (SD) on the same day in case anyone stumbled across the lost pet, but she didn’t get her hopes up. Desert box turtles aren’t exactly made for surviving in South Dakota, so Sharita Knobloch would assume the worst if she’d been gone for more than 24 hours.
“I’ve been thinking about our trip back to El Paso — how we transport this turtle more than 1,500 miles in our vehicle every summer, one-way — and thought about packing up the car and saying, ‘I can’t bring it Scoot with me’ was a really sad thought,” said Sharita Knobloch.
“We prayed for Scoot that night, ‘Lord, take her home or let her be safe,'” she continued. “The hardest thing for me was knowing… she wouldn’t make it through the winter.”
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Scoot flew out of the stable
A few days later, grandmother Lex Knobloch was looking out of her kitchen window when she saw a young girl walking across the yard with her dog.
“I came out and said, ‘Are you looking for something?'” Lex Knobloch said. “She said, ‘I’m looking for your turtle! I made some posters and put them on posts outside just so people know she lives here.’ It brought tears to my eyes that complete strangers would come out and act like they really cared.”
But two weeks later, mom and the kids got a big surprise. On July 14, Lennox Argus Leader’s Coby Vander Kooy shared that her 6-year-old son Kees was returning home from swimming lessons when he spotted the turtle.
“My son walked in and said, ‘Mom, there’s a turtle out there!’ Coby Vander Kooy said, “He found it on the street outside our house … I figured if we leave it alone there’s a good chance it’ll get pulled over.”
After Coby Vander Kooy brought the missing turtle inside and tried unsuccessfully to feed it some lettuce (Scoot prefers bugs and fruit), Coby Vander Kooy posted photos of the discovery on the community’s Facebook page.
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“Immediately, someone said that was their turtle,” said Coby Vander Kooy.
Within 25 minutes Lex Knobloch stopped by to pick up Scoot after their little adventure. Scoot’s return was just in time as the Knoblochs planned to leave within the week.
Shortly thereafter, Lex chronicled the siblings’ emotional reunion with their beloved turtle. Sharita Knobloch asked the children to turn around and close their eyes before showing them their found pet.
In the video, the siblings both cover their mouths in shock.
“Oh my god! How did you find her?” said Charis while her brother exclaimed, “It’s Scoot!”
A little turtle in a big city
But this may not have been Scoot’s first major escape, the family said.
Charis prayed for a pet turtle. She had applied for a year, from early 2020 to the end.
Her mother wasn’t too keen on the idea, so she left it to those in power. In 2021, her wish was granted when a mother, daughter and son found something odd in the middle of the street one January morning while walking through their neighborhood in El Paso, Texas.
El Paso is more than three times the size of Sioux Falls. They knew what they were seeing was definitely an animal, but it’s quite unusual for them to find wildlife in a Texas urban sprawl, Sharita Knobloch said. So you had your doubts.
As the Knoblochs got closer, they realized that the lumpy brown object was actually a desert box turtle – a year of prayer was suddenly realized for Charis.
“We picked her up and found that she was missing a front foot. I mean she was quite healed and moving well but we didn’t want her to get run over by a vehicle so we picked her up and took her home,” said Sharita Knobloch.
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Initially, circumstances didn’t seem to match what Charis wanted. Sharita Knobloch noted that the turtle seemed to tolerate being picked up and handled. It even seemed to enjoy scratching its head, so they suspected this turtle might already be someone else’s pet.
Mom decided that returning the turtle to its owner was the right thing to do. She asked her neighbors if anyone could have lost the animal, but no dice. She then posted photos of the lost and found turtle to her Facebook page in hopes that someone in her online circle would recognize the pet, but no one stepped forward.
After a few days of unsuccessfully waiting for someone to reclaim her missing pet, Sharita Knobloch decided to keep the turtle, although she felt sorry for the people who no longer had the reptile.
And her new pet would need a new name.
“We just thought of a name, and we thought of Scooter, and then we shortened it to Scoot,” Charis said, with Sharita Knobloch adding, “Even though she has one foot [missing], she was really excited. I think that’s how we landed on it.”
“I was really happy and couldn’t believe we got her,” added Charis.
All’s well that ends well
Luckily, the Vander Kooys found Scoot and helped reunite the pet with her loving family.
“That evening there were many hugs and many prayers and a few tears,” said Sharita Knobloch.
Lex Knobloch said she wasn’t surprised by the community support. She said people in Lennox are very close knit and neighbors tend to look out for each other.
“It was really cool to surprise the kids. I’m really glad we have it on video,” said Sharita Knobloch. “I’ve watched this video so many times because it’s just such a real surprise and a real joy.”
“It was a tearful reunion,” added Lex Knobloch. “I gave $20 to the kids that found them and I said, ‘Go get yourself an ice cream cone or something. Thank you for making my granddaughter and daughter happy.’”
Sharita Knobloch said it made her realize “how wonderful small-town America is” and looks forward to returning one day.
Dominik Dausch is Argus Leader’s Agriculture and Environment Reporter and Editor of Farm Forum. Keep following him Twitter and Facebook @DomDNP and send news tips to ddausch@gannett.com.