When Brianna Minor and her fiancé toured their new house in June, there was a strange bowl sitting on the fireplace. At the time, they didn’t think anything of it. Later on, they realized it had been a clue.
After moving in, Minor’s fiancé was making her food when their dogs became fixated on something under the stove. He bent down to investigate — and found a gecko staring back at him.
The couple was, of course, startled by this discovery, and immediately assumed the little gecko was someone’s lost pet.
Once the gecko, later named Dotty, was found, the random bowl on the fireplace suddenly made sense. It had been a clue from the previous occupants that someone had been left behind, and that she was still around there somewhere waiting to be found.
“The bowl on the fireplace was only an ashtray in my head before it instantly clicked that it was a reptile water/food bowl,” Minor told The Dodo.
It only took the couple about 10 minutes to catch Dotty after spotting her. She trusted them pretty quickly, and it didn’t take them long to decide they were keeping her. They immediately went out and bought all the supplies she needed, got her settled into her new enclosure and watched her start to thrive.
“She has been such a joy to have around,” Minor said. “She just had her first shed, which is a good sign that she is comfortable with her environment and us.”
The couple certainly wasn’t expecting to find a gecko in their new house, but they’ve fully embraced her as a member of the family.
“It felt like it was meant to be,” Minor said. “This is Dotty's house; we're just living in it!”
