Good news! Martin the tortoise reunited with owner

In this week when all the talk -- in the (((controlled media))) at least -- has been about families being ripped apart by the people who don't want America to be inundated by third-world immigrants, it's nice to have a good news story. This one is about a pet being returned to his/her/its owner after having run away from home and been missing for 11 months.

The tortoise named Martin went missing from his Oakville ON home in July 2017, and was just recently reunited with his owners, Rachelle Green and her husband Daniel Kneblewski recently.

Ms Green, who plastered the small city west of Toronto with flyers when her beloved pet escaped by crawling under her backyard fence, said she received a phone call from the Oakville and Milton Humane Society, asking whether Martin had ever been found. "It kind of shocked me since it had been such a long time," she said.

According to the report on the Inside Halton website, the caller told Ms Green that Martin "was found by a man gardening about two blocks down the road from where we live."

One of the tortoise's shell sections had a small birth defect, and as she looked him over, she saw that first old scar in his shell and she burst into tears, realizing this was indeed Martin. "I vividly remembered certain markings that only my little Martin had," she told the press. "After 11 months of some sort of adventure that only Martin will ever know, his journey brought him home. If only he could talk!"

Although Martin was unable to tell what happened to him, a gentleman called Ms Green four days after the joyous reunion to say that he was the man who had dropped Martin at the humane society. He told her he found Martin while he was gardening in his backyard, about two blocks away.

The man's son had wanted to keep the tortoise, but when he took Martin to the humane society for advice on feeding and care, they immediately seized him. He shared the story with friends at a neighbourhood bar, and that's when he heard the story of Martin, and phoned the number listed on the flyers that had been distributed during the lengthy search. (The missing tortoise story had also appeared in a local newspaper -- the Oakville Beaver -- and that's all I'll say about that!)

Ms Green said she and her spouse had searched the neighbourhood for months. Initial reports when he first went missing stated that a man had been seen scooping him up from the lawn of his Bridge Road home, and apparently headed to the lake to release him. It's a good thing that report was unfounded, as Martin is a desert tortoise and can't swim.

Ms Green reckons that Martin managed to stay warm this past winter, perhaps under someone's deck, close to a heating source, where he would have hibernated until the warmth of spring hit. Her husband believes differently, thinking someone took him in, then later Martin escaped, or was set free. Whatever the case, Ms Green said her newly fenced yard, and a GPS tracking device, will prevent him from going missing again, and she’s just thrilled that Martin is back home, ready for another season of gardening.