An outdoor cat in my neighborhood attacked an adolescent/adult (I'd guess around 12-14 weeks?) fox squirrel on Monday. By the time I could intervene, the squirrel had been paralyzed.
I tried calling around to rehabbers, but they said their course of action would be to put him down. He didn't seem injured otherwise, and I wanted to give him a chance, so I've been feeding him and keeping him in an old rabbit cage with shavings and some small kitchen towels he spends most of his time under.
The first couple of days I had to manually feed him watered down baby food through a syringe; he seemed in shock and didn't want to eat or drink, but he swallowed what I put in his mouth.
Then on day three he "woke up" and seemed to be getting better. He was moving around on his own, still paralyzed but "standing" on his front legs and about to maneuver himself around to self-feed from a food dish. Fed him rabbit food mixed with trail mix, and fresh veggies and fruit. He mostly ate the fruit and nuts. He actually had a good appetite.
Yesterday, he was still moving around and looking bright-eyed and bushy-trailed, but he ate much less than on Wednesday. Today, he hasn't eaten anything at all. Even when I tried to manually give him more baby food, he wouldn't have any of it. Pooped and peed this morning, and still exhibits some energy by moving around when I lift up the towel to check up on him, but I fear it won't last.
Is there anything I can do to help him? I don't know what happened or where I went wrong or how to fix it. Should I just surrender him to be put down instead of slowly wasting away? I don't want him to suffer. Please help.