Shear madness: Agent’s alpacas run wild in Oakland neighborhood

A Bay Area real estate agent’s pair of pet alpacas ran loose through a residential Oakland neighborhood last week, spurring a frantic chase before being wrangled by animal control workers.

Boogie and Woogie, a pair of Huacaya alpacas belonging to Tobias Riday-White, an agent with Abio Properties, were captured on Saturday after several hours of roaming through Oakland Hills and a regional park when they wriggled loose from their enclosure, SF Gate first reported.

Riday-White’s chase proved fruitful but only afters hours of racing around his neighborhood and the park his property abuts with two alpaca leashes asking people he came across a question they probably never expected to be asked.

“People are having their morning stroll and I’m asking them if they’ve seen two alpacas running around,” the alpaca agent said. “They were like ‘what kind of mushrooms did this guy take?’”

Animal control officers with the corralled alpacas. Image: courtesy Ridey-White.

News of the escaped alpacas eventually made their way to the neighborhood messaging board Nextdoor, where some people mistakenly thought they had escaped from a nearby zoo. Someone eventually posted Riday-White’s number to the app after he handed them his business card in his search.

The chase really took off once the alpacas made their way out of the park and onto the residential streets of Oakland, where they made their way all the way across a freeway overpass before a quick-thinking woman corralled them in her yard and called animal control.

Riday-White had to provide his animals with their transportation back to his property, as animal control didn’t have a big enough vehicle.

“They were like ‘this is our best call of the year, we’re usually just euthanizing dogs,’” he said.

Riday-White also keeps chickens and ducks on the farm, and acquired the alpacas as a greener option to help reduce wild vegetation around the farm instead of using a lawnmower. His family also shears their wooly coats, which they plan to make clothes with according to SF Gate. 

The pair are now back in their yard, and they appear happy to be back, Riday-White said.

“The last couple of days they’ve been super nice to me,” he said. “I think they appreciate being back home.”

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