Scared away? Missing squirrel

[Scrappy Doo]

Hi everyone,

I have posted before about my yard squirrel Sweet Boy who has some rear leg mobility problems and is very thin. I have been working on getting him some good nutrition (Henry's Blocks, Harlan Teklad 2018, and various fruit and veggie baby foods) and though I couldn't see a physical improvement yet, I thought he was becoming more active and adventurous. For example, I noticed him cross the street to a neighbor's front yard and explore there for a while.

The night before last around 9:00, I got a call from a neighbor who said that some people driving by noticed a squirrel in the middle of the road (I don't know if he was laying or sitting up). Concerned, the people stopped and put the squirrel in a box and then placed him in my yard. They told my neighbor about it since he was out walking his dog. My neighbor thought that Sweet Boy was injured or dead because he was not moving.
I went outside and Sweet Boy was not dead, just laying on the ground (half on the grass, half on the walk up the front door) staying completely still, looking very scared, like perhaps frozen in fright. No apparent injuries. He looked just the same as when I had seen him earlier in the day.

I put him in a box with towels to transport him to the spot where he has been sleeping a lot lately on the ground. It has been raining here and the trees are too slippery for him to climb right now. As I was walking with him in the box, he jumped out and started running towards the road. I blocked his way with the box and scooped him back up since I was obviously now very worried about him and roads! He rode in the box the rest of the way standing on his back paws with his front paws on the rim of the box. I put the box down in front of his spot and turned it on its side so he could get out easily. He acted frozen again and stayed on his side. I gently shifted him onto his stomach. I put down some food for him inside the box and then went inside to leave him alone to recover.

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It's hard to see but he has made a form against the wall in some of the dead grass. I think this is a great area for him because he can go into the cinder blocks under the air conditioner. I have seen him go in there often during bad weather, when yard work is being done, etc. I wanted to put him in this area so he would have this safe hiding place to go to since the trees are too slippery right now.

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This is the box I used. I had set it directly in front of his form. I have since moved it off to the side (as pictured).

The next morning (yesterday morning) Sweet Boy was gone. The food was gone too. I haven't seen him since. I am obviously a little worried since in the past couple weeks I have seen him every day.

I really didn't and don't think there was anything physically wrong with him that wasn't already present. I am thinking that he just got scared and has gone elsewhere to recover. (It was also terrible rain off/on all day yesterday and this morning, only clearing up this afternoon.) The neighbor's yard across the other street (I am a corner house) has a tree totally covered in vines. I have always thought that Sweet Boy might also have a home in there. But I can't look for him in the tree with my binoculars without looking crazy-- I don't know that neighbor.

Anyway, I have read several old threads on here about squirrels going missing and sometimes turning up much later. I really do feel that he is not dead or injured, but I am concerned I scared him away and destroyed the relationship we had been building. (Just recently he tried to climb up my arm as I was feeding him apples!) I guess I just want opinions on what was happening with the car situation and the "freezing". I was speculating that he was trying to cross the street, was frightened by the car and froze, and the people who saw him became concerned, moved him, etc.

I am sorry this is so long! Thank you for reading! It has honestly made me feel better to just type it out. But any thoughts are welcome. I am new to squirrels.

[Lighten-Up]

Hi Scrappy Doo,

Thank you for doing your best to share love and help this sweet little squirrel. I do not think you did anything that can't be fixed in your relationship with the squirrel, so please don't beat yourself up. Bottom line is that you did what you thought best in that moment. That is the most that any of us can do, because none of us know what is actually best, and sometimes we don't get it quite right. But if we don't know, then doing our best is the best. And in hindsight we can learn from how the situration went and consider how we might do it differently next time. So don't spend any time, if you can help it, feeling guilt over making him scared or chasing him off. The squirrel obviously needed help of some kind as it was not acting like a fully healthy normal squirrel. Because in most cases you can't get near a healthy wild squirrel.

I'll share one exception, there is a very small baby in our yard this year, and from day one, it came up to both my husband and I, and it wanted to sniff the back of our knuckles. I should say, it wanted to sniff our hands and so we presented the back of our hand, ie knuckles, which was safer than offering a finger to a wild squirrel if you know what I mean. This little one calmly sniffed our knuckles and shuffled away. He's been like that ever since. We call him Knuckles and give him nuts. Interestingly he also has a rear leg that he was dragging around a little, it seems much better now.

Anyway, back to your story.
I don't feel that what you did chased him away, if he was willing to be put into a box, he was willing to have you around. It is not normal for tree squirrels (is this a tree squirrel? or ground squirrel?) to hang around the ground and make forms to rest in. They will forage and play, but they need to be up in the trees for safety. And wet trees make it more difficult, but none of my squirrels avoid trees when they are wet, they do sometimes slip off branches, but they still navigate wet limbs well. The cinderblocks would be a good place to run to fast if they needed protection, but that would only offer minimal protection, a tree squirrel needs to be up high at night for their best chance at protection. So if your squirrel was able bodied enough, in my opinion it would be best if he left that area you photographed, because other than a nice place to hang out for a few hours, he belongs elsewhere. So maybe he went up into the trees.

Was this a little baby? Because it is not normal for a squirrel to let perfect strangers pick it up and put it into a box. Not sure what his issues are. Internal injuries, concussion from hitting his head? Unless he is a little baby, I don't know what would make him so tame, so to speak. Unless, like our Knuckles, there is a type of squirrel this year that just likes humans. ?

I send prayers that this squirrel be strong and healthy. And I hope he comes back to show you that he's ok. The hardest part of helping little critters is becoming attached to them, and when they leave, thinking or feeling we have done something wrong. I have had to deal with this a lot. However, after a few years of driving myself literally bonkers with emotional turmoil, I have had to learn to come to a new way of being with squirrels; simply because I want to be happy, and not sad or upset. And that new way of being is --that I realize they are wild. And so I will expect that they will live their lives as they wish, they may visit me, stay around or come and go, and all is well. That they live their life their way is most important, and then I must focus on living my life my way, and keep busy with things I love, so I don't over focus on a squirrel that has run off. And then I celebrate the times I see and interface with my wild squirrel family, but I do not expect it. That way there is less wondering if I did anything wrong, as I realize they are being non-domesticated animals, whose ways are a bit past finding out. And I celebrate their independence, as that's is what makes them so alluring to me. All of that was a process of several years, it's not like flipping a switch, it takes self reflection and pondering and relearning, but to me it has made all the difference in the world.

I would not go back to how I used to be. I was an anxious mess. Really. It wasn't pleasant. I just cared so much for them that I was worried non-stop about them. But then it occurred to me, that if I was worried about them, that is actually negative energy, and that doesn't help them one bit. And if I took that a step deeper, it kind of meant that I didn't actually care about them totally, because what would be in their best interest was not someone holding negative thoughts that they were in peril all the time. What would be in their best interest was someone that was believing in their own capabilities and of course helping them out as you did, when they actually needed help. So when I came to understanding that my own worry was about me, not them, because it wasn't best for them; that was when I was able to begin working to let it go. Not easy I will say, but doable when the desire is strong enough.

I can be a bit deep. I hope that wasn't too much. I simply wanted to respond to your question because I really appreciate when I get responses to questions that I care about. Take what you want and toss out what doesn't suit you. And again, thanks for your willingness to support and care for Sweet Boy. :-)

[Rock Monkey]

Sometimes there can be internal injuries that show very few outward signs. Hopefully this was not the case.

Keep a look out for Sweet Boy and continue to put out food and water (water in a water bottle gets less mucked up) for him as you do. Sometimes all you can do is wait optimistically. Putting out food for him will lessen his need to cross the road in search of food.

[Scrappy Doo]

Thank you so much, Lighten Up! What you said has really helped me see the situation in a new, healthier way. You're right that worrying about his ability to care for himself is doing him a disservice and is not good for me, either. I haven't always worried about him, so this was new for me.

To answer some of your questions, he is a tree squirrel and he typically spends most of his time in trees, and he always sleeps in them. He is not a great climber because there is something wrong with one or both of his back legs or feet. But he always seems to manage to get to where he wants to go. But like I said, on occasion, I have noticed him chilling in that spot on the ground during the day. I assumed he went there because the concrete foundation is cool and he would spread out his body against it. And I have seen him go under the A/C during hard rains.

Earlier in the same day that this happened, I saw him try to climb his favorite tree but he kept slipping down after only getting a couple feet off the ground. He also tried another tree but the same thing happened. Then he went to that spot on the ground. I had been watching all this from inside the house so later I went to check out the tree and see if there was a reason he was suddenly not able to climb something he climbs all the time. The bark was extremely slick with something more than just water, maybe like moss or something like that. He has climbed trees in the rain many times before, but we've been having a lot of rain and this is a humid place so I think it's conceivable that whatever this slippery stuff is has never grown before.

Sweet Boy is friendly to me, but he acts like a normal wild squirrel towards others, so I don't know why he would let strangers pick him up. That's why I was hypothesizing that he was frozen in fright, though I don't know if that is a thing that squirrels do or not. This was actually the first time I have picked him up or initiated touching at all. He will sometimes touch me when I am giving him treats, but I have never tried to pet him or anything like that.

He is not a baby but I don't know how old he is. He is a small squirrel and I have wondered if he is young or extremely old. The first time I saw him was February when it snowed here and we lost power during the freeze in Texas. He hung out on the porch some of the time and he looked really rough. He has been coming by on and off since then and we have become friends over that time. Since I have been feeding him yummy healthy food, he has been coming regularly.

Thank you again for sharing your wisdom and experience, Lighten-Up. It has helped me immensely.

[Rock Monkey]

I went to check out the tree and see if there was a reason he was suddenly not able to climb something he climbs all the time. The bark was extremely slick with something more than just water, maybe like moss or something like that. He has climbed trees in the rain many times before, but we've been having a lot of rain and this is a humid place so I think it's conceivable that whatever this slippery stuff is has never grown before.

Moss and lichen comes out of dormancy during humid and rainy times. Here, 2020 featured the most rainfall ever, twice the normal amount. The winter was also wet. Consequently the lichen has never been so widespread. If you want to help Sweet Boy you might take a brush and scrub the base of some of his favorite trees.

[Lighten-Up]

I'm glad that my thoughts were helpful!, thank you for letting me know. :-). Thank you for answering the questions, based on that here are a few more observations.

It is normal for tree squirrels to hang out on the ground during the day, they do have their favorite places, but most run up high at the first sign of danger. But if your guy knows he has compromised legs, he might run into something like the concrete blocks. And yes, they do search out cool places to cool their bellies. A lot of my squirrels will pancake their bellies at the bases of large trees on really hot days. Squirrels can get heatstroke if they get too hot. I had this happen to a 6 month old baby squirrel in the yard, he couldn't much move for two days. I happened to have the time and was able to sit next to him both days, as he lay on the ground, to protect him from predators. At night he climbed only 8 feet to under a shed roof, I had to trust he would be okay there, then the next morning he went back to the ground for the whole day while I sat next to him again. After that, he had recovered, and went back to his normal life. But I received the wonderment that he now viewed me as a super safe friend and he would climb into my hand. Prior to that I had never touched him. But within a few months, he left the yard to search out his own territory. He came back twice in one year to show me he was well, just living his life in another place. This was so dear. But I really loved him, so I missed him. I never saw him again that I know of after those two visits.... Their normal body temperature is higher than a humans, so they feel hotter than we do when it gets hot.

I have watched my own agile squirrels slip off wet branches, so if your guy has an issue with his back legs, that may make the wet branches even more difficult to navigate, and Rocky Monkey had a good point about the lichen/moss. That stuff can make our own human back deck treacherous when it gets wet. Scrubbing it off would help him.

I have never known a squirrel to freeze in fright. They will get panicky in front of an oncoming car, but they don't freeze, they still run, back and forth erratic, which is not usually helpful. Oposums are the ones known to freeze, but I don't think that is something a squirrel would ever do. I can't figure out why he would let your neighbor pick him up, because even an injured squirrel may bite as a last resort to protect themselves if they can't run away due to a body injury, that's why I wondered if there was some brain injury. But that doesn't mean there is. Maybe he just has a really low adrenal gland function, so he isn't panicking.....

That's all the thoughts I have. Keep giving him healthy foods. And I hope you will see him soon. It is a beautiful thing to be helpful to these little sweet beings. Thank you.

[Scrappy Doo]

Moss and lichen comes out of dormancy during humid and rainy times. Here, 2020 featured the most rainfall ever, twice the normal amount. The winter was also wet. Consequently the lichen has never been so widespread. If you want to help Sweet Boy you might take a brush and scrub the base of some of his favorite trees.

That is a great idea! I will definitely do that.

[Scrappy Doo]

Sometimes there can be internal injuries that show very few outward signs. Hopefully this was not the case.

Keep a look out for Sweet Boy and continue to put out food and water (water in a water bottle gets less mucked up) for him as you do. Sometimes all you can do is wait optimistically. Putting out food for him will lessen his need to cross the road in search of food.

Internal injuries had crossed my mind. (Hopefully not, as you say!) Do you know what a squirrel with internal injuries might do/go? I don't want to be gruesome, but I found a squirrel's body in my yard a few months ago, which led me to believe I would be able to find him if he had passed away.

I had run through the internal injuries idea to come up with some scenarios of how he would have sustained them. I don't think he could have fallen from a tree because he wasn't actually able to climb them at that time, and none of the trees hang out over the middle of the road, where he was allegedly found. If he had been hit by a car, I thought I would have seen some outward signs. And the fact that he initially jumped out of the box and ran like the dickens led me to believe that he didn't have any physical injuries from a car hit.

There are a number of squirrels that come to my yard so I always have out 2 water bowls and a low concrete bird bath. I'm pretty good about cleaning them every day. I scrub them with a brush and occasionally I clean them with vinegar. I will also continue to put out food.

Thank you for your help, Rock Monkey!

[Scrappy Doo]

I'm glad that my thoughts were helpful!, thank you for letting me know. :-). Thank you for answering the questions, based on that here are a few more observations.

It is normal for tree squirrels to hang out on the ground during the day, they do have their favorite places, but most run up high at the first sign of danger. But if your guy knows he has compromised legs, he might run into something like the concrete blocks. And yes, they do search out cool places to cool their bellies. A lot of my squirrels will pancake their bellies at the bases of large trees on really hot days. Squirrels can get heatstroke if they get too hot. I had this happen to a 6 month old baby squirrel in the yard, he couldn't much move for two days. I happened to have the time and was able to sit next to him both days, as he lay on the ground, to protect him from predators. At night he climbed only 8 feet to under a shed roof, I had to trust he would be okay there, then the next morning he went back to the ground for the whole day while I sat next to him again. After that, he had recovered, and went back to his normal life. But I received the wonderment that he now viewed me as a super safe friend and he would climb into my hand. Prior to that I had never touched him. But within a few months, he left the yard to search out his own territory. He came back twice in one year to show me he was well, just living his life in another place. This was so dear. But I really loved him, so I missed him. I never saw him again that I know of after those two visits.... Their normal body temperature is higher than a humans, so they feel hotter than we do when it gets hot.

I have watched my own agile squirrels slip off wet branches, so if your guy has an issue with his back legs, that may make the wet branches even more difficult to navigate, and Rocky Monkey had a good point about the lichen/moss. That stuff can make our own human back deck treacherous when it gets wet. Scrubbing it off would help him.

I have never known a squirrel to freeze in fright. They will get panicky in front of an oncoming car, but they don't freeze, they still run, back and forth erratic, which is not usually helpful. Oposums are the ones known to freeze, but I don't think that is something a squirrel would ever do. I can't figure out why he would let your neighbor pick him up, because even an injured squirrel may bite as a last resort to protect themselves if they can't run away due to a body injury, that's why I wondered if there was some brain injury. But that doesn't mean there is. Maybe he just has a really low adrenal gland function, so he isn't panicking.....

That's all the thoughts I have. Keep giving him healthy foods. And I hope you will see him soon. It is a beautiful thing to be helpful to these little sweet beings. Thank you.

Thank you, Lighten-Up! I hope to see him soon, too. He is a special little guy! In the meantime, I am going to scrub his trees and keep leaving out the food and water.

[Scrappy Doo]

Here are some photos from July 25th that I thought I'd share. In one of the photos he is licking the baby food off of a piece of lettuce I am holding. Is this particularly unusual for a wild squirrel? I've been thinking about what Lighten-Up said about his perhaps not being as fearful.

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[Rock Monkey]

You certainly seem to have won his trust.

I am not sure there is much you can do about internal, besides provide a safe place, soft foods and water. Maybe something for the pain if he seemed to be in substantial pain. If you find him again looking dazed I would bring him inside to keep him safe from predators, because if he did have such injuries he would likely spend a lot of time sleeping. A frozen wild squirrel strongly suggests to me a substantial medical problem of some kind.

[Lighten-Up]

Hello,

Those photos are precious, he trusts you. A squirrel licking baby food off a lettuce leaf is not normal for a wild squirrel. But it is not unheard of. Usually those who raise and release squirrels can have that type of trust and interaction. But there are times when a truly wild squirrel and a human have just the right vibe between them that there is trust, even when there is nothing wrong that the squirrel needs help. It does happen, but I would consider it rare. You seem to have this combination with Sweet Boy. Thanks for sharing, those photos are truly precious.