~Bucky the Squirrel~*the following is completely hypothetical*
Over five years ago I was working in Florida doing marine construction when my co-worker saw what appeared to be a miniature pig on the ground.
"It's a squirrel! If it's still there at the end of the day maybe we should try to save it."
However, I feared its chances were minimal. Predatory birds and somewhat cold temperatures would most likely lead to a painful cruel death. So I wrapped it in a black polar fleece and put it in the window of the work van, under sunlight.
At my home I began to attempt to nourish it. I went to the pharmacy and bought baby formula and an eyedropper. I fed it that way, by sheer guesswork, for half a week before I did any real research. I was pretty busy with stuff and didn't have an easy way to get online at that point.
He got a bit stronger but also pooped a lot like his insides were boiling so I looked up what one is actually supposed to feed him online.
Turns out I did the first thing right- If you don't warm 'em up first they die from eating. The second part was FAIL. Puppy formula was indicated. So I got some. Also, you're supposed to wet cotton balls or q tips with warm water and rub their public parts with them after they eat and that's how they eliminate when they don't have chronic diarrhea. It duplicates the action of the mother, who basically licks that stuff out. I know, gross, huh?
Other than that you just keep them warm and nesty. I had a shoebox and t-shirts. Everyone's got shoeboxes and t-shirts!
Before long he really strengthed up. The eyedropper was replaced with a visine bottle. I filled it from a shot glass that I reheated a few times and stored in the fridge. Oh yeah, feeding them cold formula can kill them too. Also, you have to dilute it with water... Cuz it's their hydration source too.
So there I am feeding this orphan squirrel who lays on its back in my hand and then I hold it over a paper towel and it poops out brown rice and makes like 3 drops of pee for a few weeks. His eyes are shut. I didn't even know he was a he at first due to the lack of discernable tackle.
Before long he becomes, well, pretty darn cute. The shoebox is opened for his feeding and he blindly hops the long 2 feet forward into my lap. I had the shoebox positioned so there wasn't a front on it when it was opened and he could sense the light of the room and come out. I talked to him and made chirpy clicky sounds and we were pretty tight.
He grew some fuzz and his tail went from a rat tail to a funny featherly looking thing. He got stronger and bigger and one day he's coming out of the box and his face is twitching. He stops and collects himself or something and then opens his eyelids and blinks a few times and seems to focus his eyes on me. I swear I saw nothing but love and awe in his eyes, the clarity of his black eyeballs was deeper than any well or clear night sky I had ever seen. He hopped up and eagerly fed and was in Love.
From that point on, he got more active. The shoebox was ditched in favor of letting him sleep in a pile of sweaters. Gross huh? I had to shake out the little raisinettes before I wore them. I'm not real concerned with stuff like dirt or germs though. Hit me up ladies!
Before long dried fruits and nuts and shredded coconut and stuff supplemented his regular feedings. A shot glass was substituted for the visine bottle and he fed himself, sticking his face into the tilted glass from a position on my forearm and alternating slugging formula and sneezing. I figured he was fine, he never choked, just sprayed formula everywhere. Feeding him solid food by hand was fun. Oh yeah, he had teeth at that point and also displayed nuts so I named him Bucky.
The sweaters were great for him- quiet, safe in the closet, and he jumped and ran up my other clothes to get to the shelf where he nested. Every day, as soon as I woke up or came home from work, he came out, all excited and like trembling and holding his paws in front of him in anticipation. I was his mom but I was also a tree. He'd jump up onto my jeans and run around my shoulders and head. Sniff in my ears and stuff. You know, cute baby stuff. When he started trying to build a nest in my hair I felt it was time to provide some other nesting material.
I got an old wardrobe from someone's trash and took the front doors off. The bottom had a door that opened up- it was hinged on the top. I reversed the hinges and the door opened like a walkway to the floor. I made a hole to a shelf on the top and I put screen material on the front that was durable. A cardboard tube was his walkway up but to be honest he used the screen and never the tube. I put griptape on the bottom door so he wouldn't slip and his old shoebox was up top. I could never get to the top- no one could. He stayed in there all day and ran around and when I came home I opened the bottom door and he came out and got formula. I'd long since swapped out the q-tip in favor of a modification- running his junk under warm water until he pooped in the sink. Much easier, quick too. If you've ever put your drunk friend's hand in a bowl of warm water when he's passed out you'll know what I mean.
So now he came out and stayed out the whole time I was home. My hand was his playmate, and he learned to scurry, wrestle, bite (never hard though) and even box. Pics or it didn't happen- I'll attach a bunch, including the boxing session. Then when he got tired he went back to his nest and I closed the door without him even noticing. I was glad it wasn't really like he was caged. I'm not into that. But for practical purposes it's good to contain a squirrel by day. They can be a bit destructive and are virtual raisinette factories before long.
Hmmm what else. I built him an indoor tree. Fried banana chips were his favorite, mine too. Lots of oils and sweet- but get them at the health food store. I took him for walks and he stayed inside my jacket. He chilled on my shoulder a lot. When I came home he was so excited he ran around the cage like a madman. Like the tasmanian devil. His nest box had like multiple windows and he never stopped improving it- did you know that they put up flaps over the windows so they could peek out but also block drafts? Me either.
Get this- I go home for Christmas for a week (Florida to New England) and my girlfriend at the time takes care of him.
"How's Bucky?"
"He's good, but he really really misses you."
"What? How can you tell?"
"I can just tell- he looks kinda sad sometimes. He acts like he is waiting for you."
When I return and put my stuff down and sit on the futon, He comes over and runs onto my shoulder and PUTS HIS CHEEK AGAINST MY CHEEK AND JUST SITS THERE. FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES. I was floored. Squirrels got feelings! Deep feelings.
He bit me hard one time only, not enough to draw blood but enough to let me know what's up. A friend and I were smoking a blunt and I was laughing real loud at him. He liked blunts but perhaps we had all overdone it a bit that time. He ran up and bit my thumb hard enough to let me know I was being lame, and I was. I never laughed at him again.
I'm not gonna lie- taking him in the car was even awesome. Imagine you are a little girl in a minivan and you look over and see a guy driving a car with a squirrel riding on his steering arm looking out the windshield. The movement seemed most comfortable to him if he looked ahead... like we do. The girl plasters her face to the van window and I give her a big grin.
I swear this transpired although I could only infer it:
"Mommy Mommy there's a man driving his car with a squirrel!"
"Sit down and stop telling lies or you'll be in trouble."
Her mom never even looked. It's all good though; kids rule.
I'd started taking him outside and putting him in small trees. I brought him to the beach a few times. The ocean freaked him out, he stayed in my coat. Then I saw in the paper that someone had gotten a bunch of tickets for feeding squirrels, "keeping" them as pets, and I kid you not: something about having a wild animal in public- specifically taking a squirrel to the beach. WTF? I am totally serious. I had only fielded a few questions from passersby but keeping a wild animal as a pet is totally illegal. So we didn't go out in public anymore- the attention wasn't fun anyway;I realized I dislike answering questions from onlookers.
I still took him outside and let him play in a small tree every other day or so. Eventually he got pretty big. His tail was majestic. It tickled my face but his pinky toe claw dragging across the back of my neck was getting pretty old.
I never intended to keep him, just help him. Of course I loved him, he was my baby. One day, I took him to a larger group of trees and put him on the trunk. I didn't know what he would do, I don't think he did either. But it's far more natural for a squirrel to climb up then it is for them to climb down. If your cat ever treed itself, it's kinda like that. SO he scurried up to the top of the tree.
He was in heaven. He sniffed the wind for a bit, then looked back down at me. Our eyes met and there was deep acknowledgement, then in an instant, it was gone. His true nature enveloped his whole being. He never looked back. Instead he was eating foliage shoots from the tree.
It took me a while to go inside. When I came out to check on him later, two fat cats were circling the bottom of the tree. I stomped the ground and they ran away. A huge bird with a long beak was also in the tree, but I think it was the insect eating or fish eating kind... Bucky was building a fantastic nest and I was proud. I thought, "Cool, he's gonna live right up there where I can see him."
WRONG. Their nests are temporary. They're somewhat nomadic except when they're breeding. I lost track of him. You'd think I never saw him again, but actually I saw him everywhere. All over town. Every squirrel seemed to be him from then on, and they seemed to see something in me. They all stopped and looked into my eyes without fear. I watched them for fun and put food out in the yard, and chirped and learned some squirrel words. My heart went out to them when they cried from the trees.
You can learn a lot from a squirrel. They are a true idealistic cooperative society. They're equal to each other in almost every way, and they live in a total balance. They're like the Smurfs but without all the zaniness. They nest and travel and spread out into healthy territory. I don't know if they kill each other- I think they only battle for territority through displays of dominance. Fresh air, food, sibling games of hide-and-seek and real freedom exemplified. They don't even mind us too much.
In closing, I hope everyone gets to hypothetically one day raise a squirrel. It's not legal in most places, though, so check with your local wildlife experts, whoever they are. Also, I guess they could carry diseases or something. I never feared that but maybe I should have. Rodent droppings can be super poisonous if you breathe them I heard. But it's not possible to breathe soft raisinette-sized turds. Small children shouldn't be around squirrels.
For me it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will never forget. Hope you liked reading this- sorry if I kinda jacked this thread. I didn't know how long this story would be cuz I've never written it.
Now I got regular-people pets
Tommie Sunshine- Don't Look Back ♪♫sØrce attached the following image(s):
Bucky the Squirrel.jpg
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(114kb) downloaded 306 time(s)."The world is his, who can see through it's pretension...see it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its final blow..." -Ralph W. Emerson