A few weeks ago, Chompy got out of his tank and we haven’t found him. He usually gets out for a few days at a time because he knows how to open his tank, but always comes back when he gets cold/hungry. He’s been like that since he was a baby. This time - he still hasn’t come back, and we’ve been looking EVERYWHERE for about 2 weeks now and haven’t found anything. I’ve read some threads on things to do but no such luck and at this point I’m reaching out to see if there’s anything else we can do.
We’ve turned the heat in our house up to 85° in hopes of stirring him; set out food (live crickets in small containers in different areas of the house)/water; looked under & behind furniture/appliances; moved things; and have been looking nearly every day in any spot he could be in. We’ve looked in pretty much every spot there is to think of, including inside of things like the dishwasher/laundry units/etc. We have 3 cats. Usually they’re more afraid of him than he is of them - he’s 25” and about 1.5 lbs, and he’s always bitten them if they’ve gotten too close so they usually just stay clear; and we haven’t found any blood or evidence that they could have done something to him.
At this point I’m worried that he could have gotten outside somehow (albeit it is extremely unlikely) or gotten into a spot and starved to death.
What else is there that we can do? If he got outside he is dead; I live in Minnesota and we’ve had temps hit the 30s & 40s at nighttime. I just don’t know how he would have gotten out, he is a brave little ****er but he is so terrified of being outside he doesn’t even like sitting in the windows and in the past he has tried to run/hide when we’ve carried him the 10 feet from the house to the car. Then the question is raised as to how he would have gotten out - we have a front & back door, but no garage or anything so the only entry/exit points are directly through the doors and they would have had to have been propped open while he was out & about for him to have wandered - with our cats, we do not prop the doors open and if they are there is someone by the door to make sure they don’t get out. Even if they were left propped open and someone walked away even for a brief moment, there is a ~5” drop from the door to the stairs and it is made of metal so we would have heard him scampering (I live in a trailer, so our house is very small and you can hear pretty much everything from any given point). I strongly doubt he would have just wandered outside. I am going to walk around the neighborhood today and ask around but given how terrified he is of the outdoors it seems unlikely anyone would have found him, as he would have gone straight to a hiding spot. We’ve already looked in our yard and gardens.
Please help. I don’t remember exactly what day he went missing, I remember coming home from school and him being gone and not really worrying because of his history of escapes; it was a few days afterward that we started *really* looking. I don’t know what else to do and I’m terrified; Chompy is my baby.
We’ve turned the heat in our house up to 85° in hopes of stirring him; set out food (live crickets in small containers in different areas of the house)/water; looked under & behind furniture/appliances; moved things; and have been looking nearly every day in any spot he could be in. We’ve looked in pretty much every spot there is to think of, including inside of things like the dishwasher/laundry units/etc. We have 3 cats. Usually they’re more afraid of him than he is of them - he’s 25” and about 1.5 lbs, and he’s always bitten them if they’ve gotten too close so they usually just stay clear; and we haven’t found any blood or evidence that they could have done something to him.
At this point I’m worried that he could have gotten outside somehow (albeit it is extremely unlikely) or gotten into a spot and starved to death.
What else is there that we can do? If he got outside he is dead; I live in Minnesota and we’ve had temps hit the 30s & 40s at nighttime. I just don’t know how he would have gotten out, he is a brave little ****er but he is so terrified of being outside he doesn’t even like sitting in the windows and in the past he has tried to run/hide when we’ve carried him the 10 feet from the house to the car. Then the question is raised as to how he would have gotten out - we have a front & back door, but no garage or anything so the only entry/exit points are directly through the doors and they would have had to have been propped open while he was out & about for him to have wandered - with our cats, we do not prop the doors open and if they are there is someone by the door to make sure they don’t get out. Even if they were left propped open and someone walked away even for a brief moment, there is a ~5” drop from the door to the stairs and it is made of metal so we would have heard him scampering (I live in a trailer, so our house is very small and you can hear pretty much everything from any given point). I strongly doubt he would have just wandered outside. I am going to walk around the neighborhood today and ask around but given how terrified he is of the outdoors it seems unlikely anyone would have found him, as he would have gone straight to a hiding spot. We’ve already looked in our yard and gardens.
Please help. I don’t remember exactly what day he went missing, I remember coming home from school and him being gone and not really worrying because of his history of escapes; it was a few days afterward that we started *really* looking. I don’t know what else to do and I’m terrified; Chompy is my baby.