Pet kangaroo reunited with owner after hopping through Prosper neighborhood

Residents in a Prosper neighborhood caught sight of a kangaroo hopping in front of their homes Thursday — another case of an exotic animal on the loose in North Texas.

In this case, the kangaroo was a pet and his owner, Sameer Ahmed, told KXAS-TV (NBC5) that Jax had slipped out of his backyard. He said he recaptured Jax by chasing after him and luring him with a bottle of milk.

Ahmed described Jax as a “sweetheart” who has never harmed anyone. He told the TV station he hopes to relocate the kangaroo to a nearby farm one day to give Jax more space to roam.

The case of the wayward kangaroo surprisingly isn’t Dallas-Fort Worth’s first encounter with a marsupial going astray: A couple of wallabies went missing in recent years.

Wallabies are related to kangaroos, but are much smaller than their cousins, according to National Geographic.

In 2019, a wallaby named Muggsy went missing in Old East Dallas and was returned to its owner after Dallas Animal Services captured the animal in a net.

In 2013, a wallaby named Wall-e escaped his owner’s backyard in Grand Prairie and was caught after a good Samaritan put a leash on him. Animal services officers were able to track down the pet’s owner using his tags.

DAS also sheltered a wallaby, dubbed Wally, in 2016 when a woman saw the pet being neglected outside of her Far North Dallas condo and called the agency to pick him up.