Here is the real Emu story.....

Years ago, my wife and I, along with Jordan our kid who was little at the time lived in Clearview/Bothel area. The houses there were all on 2 to 5 acre lots in the area with lots of woods and salal between them. We had a black lab that never barked, ever for anything, we tried to get him to bark and he wouldn't. One Saturday morning, early, around 6 or so we get woken up to our dog barking. He's barking like crazy in the living room. So I grogelly sit up in bed and pull the blinds. I look out onto the front yard and in the grass I see what I though was an ostrich. I grabbed Jennifers shoulder and yelled, "there's and Ostrich in our yard. I jump up and got dressed, Jennifer did too. I told her to get the video camera. I got outside and tried to grab the big bird which turned out to be a huge emu. Of course it ran, I would sneak up and try again and again, each time failing as the thing ran real fast. It would run and hide in the bushes, I'd see it, and do it agian. At one point I couldn't find it, then while sitting back in the house full of excitement and addrenalin, my neighbor comes over and says there's an Emu in his yard. I say, "good, lets go get it." I grabbed a ski rope out of my boat in the driveway, cut it, and turned it into a lasso. We got to his house and I would run and try to rope it, often hitting it with the rope, but never getting it around its neck. Now there is about 4 or so neighbors all attempting to track this thing, but just me trying to do the actual catching of it as they were all scared of it. Next thing ya know, a cop shows up. He says to stay back, and they will get animal control out to tranquilize it. The emu went into another yard on one of my attempts at getting it. The cop sent the two ladies into the house and Jennifer got out of the way. Soon the emu sat down in the front yard of my neighbor. The cop had his gun drawn hiding around the corner of the house with 4 other dudes and me also around the corner of the house. I was the first one crouched down around the corner, the cop behing me and so forth. I said, " I can get him...I'll just sneak up on him and throw the rope around his neck." They're all like, no, don't do that, those thing are dangerous, they can kill you with one kick. The cop said those tallons can rip right through you. The emu looked like he was asleep sitting there in the front lawn. I said, "now's the time, I can get him." So I crawled on my belly from the corner of the house out onto the wet grass and got closer and closer. I turned around and saw the cop and the other dude all huddled up at the corner of the house, of course gun drawn. I got about 4 or 5 feet away, paused, got my lasso ready, slowly got on my knees, and just tossed the formerly ski rope, turned lasso over the head of the emu. It went perfectly over but stopped only a short way down the neck. These emu's have pretty big necks on 'em. So I slowly worked the lasso, moving the rope back and forth gently to get the lasso to fall further down the neck. Once it got down to the base, right above the body, I looked back to the dudes, paused, took a deep breath, wrapped the rope around my wrists, and woke the sleeping emu with a yank of the rope while I rapidly stood up. It took off like a dragster, towing me behind. The thing ran so fast that my feet were running, but rarely hitting the ground, more like a skip of my feet now and then. Sometimes I'd trip or fall and get dragged, sometimes I'd catch my feet and attempted to dig my heels in and slow the emu down. I was holding on for dear life, but I was not gonna let go. I finally go the thing kinda tamed down a bit and was yelling at Jennifer to get it on video, and to go home and open the dog kennel door, I was gonna put it in there. The emu would slow down, and I would think I had it under control, it would start walking instead of running, then it would take off again. Finally I kind of steered it like a horse and got it into my yard after it drug me though the woods and bushes, and then finally I got it with a little steering and then sudden pushing into the dog kennel and closed the door. I then had the biggest feeling of a rush I'd ever had. I was on a high for about 3 days. Calling everyone I knew that I'd roped an emu, and I had it in my dog kennel. Come check it outl Turns out, there was an emu farm about 3 miles away, this was a breeder bird and had been missing for a couple weeks. The owner came and got it after he heard from a friend of one of my neighbors about the dude who roped an emu and had it stored in his dog kennel. It was the greatest catch of my life. One of the biggest thrills and rushes, and I still get excited thinking about it. An added bonus to the story is shortly there after, Jennifer and I were laying around watching the news and there was an intersection blocked off in downtown Puyallup because of an Emu on the loose. They were talking on the news about how dangerous those birds are and showing cops out with guns drawn on it waiting for someone, probably animal control, to come take care of that thing. I said geez, maybe we should go down there. I acquired no injuries during he battle except a few scratches, and I was sore for a couple days.