Pet duck
It almost sounds like it should be satire, but it actually happened. Chris Morris, a special education teacher from Maine, wrote a singles ad for his pet duck and put it on a community notice board, to try and find it a new date. Amazingly, it looks as if it might have been successful.
It begins as a sad story. The pet duck, Yellow Duck, unfortunately lost its mate recently, meeting its demise after an encounter with a bobcat. Afterwards, the duck stopped communicating with Morris’ chickens, so with Yellow Duck being in mourning, Morris decided to take action.
The 31-year-old teacher wrote an ad with the title ‘Duck Seeking Duck’. ‘Lonesome runner duck seeks companion. Partner recently deceased.’ it continued, covering all bases. He took it to a local grocery store where he placed it on the notice board. He even included a personalised email address (lonesomebluebillduck@gmail.com) and made it clear that he was looking for ‘serious replies only’ on the flyer.
The story might still have a happy ending to come. It’s been reported that a local farm owner, Sadie Greene, has a pet duck that might be a match for Yellow Duck, and the two duck owners are arranging a meeting. Yellow Duck enjoys eating slugs, so that might form the basis of their date.
Animal grief
We might think of mourning to be a solely human emotion, but it’s been proven that animals can grieve. Birds like magpies and geese have been noted to mourn their fellow avians, and the Japanese dog Hachikō famously grieved his owner Hidesaburō Ueno, waiting for him at the train station every day for nine years after he died, just as he did when he was alive.
However, it’s probably the first time that a pet owner has taken to writing a singles ad to try and help an animal go through the process of grieving – but it might work.
It’s not the first time that an owner of a bird has made the news recently, with emus going missing as well as a pet duck looking for dates. Perhaps fictional birds are having a better time…
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