So back in late September, I was out with a friend at midnight decorating the local alleys with illicit animal art. Somewhere along our journey an extremely large cat joined our party. He followed us for about 10 blocks until we finally lost him to the night. A couple minutes later, a TINY staggering squirrel came at me from beneath the dumpster I was innocently tagging on and proceeded to throw itself onto my boot and scale half way up my leg.
I grabbed it reflexively and stared at my friend in attempt to seek some sort of confirmation I wasn’t delusional and was actually holding a squirrel: “…this is not normal squirrel behavior, right??” we decided it wasn’t. As I was inspecting them (which turned out to be a him—who had blood all around his nose, a limp foot and open eyes) the huge thug of a cat suddenly reappeared into sight, clearly miffed we had intercepted the snack he was stalking.
we decided we couldn’t leave him to get mauled to death by the feline menace so we walked a mile home with him in hand. Half way back, he started screaming the most deafening shrill sound I’ve ever heard a squirrel make in my life. It lasted about 20 seconds and I just stood there paralyzed an abject horror only for him to suddenly stop breathing entirely and fall absolutely limp in my cupped hands. We panicked and attempted to try and figure out a way to do CPR on a baby squirrel. I ended up stuffing a tiny stick in his mouth to open up his airways (I had no **** what else to do honestly) there was some more blood in his mouth and throat I scooped out and after a couple seconds holding his tongue down and maw open he started up breathing again. Moments later, he’s alert and acting as if nothing horrifying just happened.
We finally made it back home and housed him in a crate full of soft blankets overnight, entirely expecting him to be dead in the morning. But he wasn’t. He was acting totally fine (limp leg aside). We also realized at that point that despite his open eyes, he had no upper teeth and was clearly of an age requiring formula and wasn’t just some mutant midget squirrel like we had considered the night before in the darkness.
It’s about as legal to keep squirrels where I live as it is to go about drawing graffiti in alleys, and for the first while we had him he wouldn’t move his hind leg properly so we were afraid if we took him to a vet they would put him to sleep right away. LUCKILY, my friend’s mom is a vet who does rehabbing on the other side of the country, so between her advice on what to feed and when, plus with added information found here on the Squirrel Board, we managed to keep him alive long enough to become a proper hellion.
Fast forward and now I am currently flatmates with a cage-free, lightning-fast, chittering furry menace. His leg started working again after a couple weeks and despite now living in constant danger of airborne squirrel attacks, I’ve grown awfully fond of this little lad who has taught me so much about his kind that I would have never had the privilege to experience otherwise. He seems extremely healthy and very very active. As soon as the winter dies down here and the snow subsides, the goal/plan is to release him out into the city again now that he’s an adult.
I come here to thank everyone for all the helpful advice you’ve shared which helped us to keep him alive and well, and so that when spring rolls around, I can maybe glean some good advice on how to soft-release in a downtown setting.
Cheers All!
-me and foxy squirrel lad Snack