It was supposed to be a stress-free weekend for one newly engaged Georgia couple.
Vernalisa Rougeux and her fiance, Jake Totri, had a kid-free weekend planned last Saturday at their Roswell home, located about 20 minutes north of Atlanta.
That was until a vulture decided to roost inside their living room.
Georgia on her mind
The couple wanted to step out for lunch after a long afternoon of house cleaning.
They decided to leave their dog, Georgia, at home to finish her nap and opened the doggie dog in case she needed to go outside.
The two were gone for no more than 15 minutes.
When they arrived back home, Totri opened the front door and saw something by the back door.
“The way he reacted … just signaled to me that something was wrong,” Rougeux said. “But I thought there was an intruder in the house. That was initial thought.”
Rougeux then ran from the front door, but her fiance didn’t follow.
“He finally told me there was a vulture,” she said. “My second thought was that vultures eat dead things. So, I assumed that my dog had died and that the vulture was eating my dog.”
Her worries disappeared as Georgia came trotting out.’
‘Bigger than the bird’
By this point, she had still not seen it until her fiance came out with some video he took of the bird in their living room.
“Once I saw the vulture on the couch, I just took off running to try to do something,” Rougeux said. “I needed to be bigger than the bird to scare it away.”
She immediately thought of the large umbrella sitting inside her foyer. She quickly ran in to grab it. Rougeux was now ready to take back her home.
As her fiance went toward the back of the house to open up the doors, Rougeux went in where she came eye-to-eye with the vulture.
She kept opening and closing the umbrella to try to scare it toward the door.
The vulture then began to fly erratically around the home, knocking into the window over and over to get out.
“At one point, it flew upstairs, grabbed onto the stair handrail and couldn’t grip it, apparently, and just slid all the way down,” Rougeux said with a laugh.
The pandemonium went on for about 5 minutes before the vulture got to the door and flew away to perch on the neighbor’s roof.
“This thing was huge,” Rougeux said. “I mean, the video doesn’t do it justice. It was huge.”
The couple said they are certain the bird got in through Georgia’s doggie door, because everything else was locked in their home.
The bigger question was why did this scavenger arrive in the first place?
Rougeux believes it was her daughter’s stuffed bear inside their home left next to the doggie door.
“What I learned about vultures this weekend was that they cannot smell, but they do have keen eyesight,” she said.
She also believes her dog was asleep the whole time.
“The way she came trotting out, there was no way she knew that thing was in there,” Rougeux laughed.
Since the incident, Rougeux said they have received a lot of attention over the unwelcomed house guest.
“If nothing else, this could be a PSA service like, ‘Close your doggie door,’” she said.
Vultures play an important role in the ecosystem, feeding on mostly already dead animals, according to Georgia wildlife officials. They are also extremely adaptable and thrive in proximity to people.
