Linenoise
Member
One day I was driving home from work. I used to live in a gated community, lots of trees, tons of squirrels. On this particular day I was driving down my neighborhood street (only going like 10 MPH) when a pair of squirrels darted out in front of me. They looked adorable, it was clear (atleast in my mind) they were playing chase or something. One squirrel was clearly following the other. It sort of made me think of tag or chase but who knows, maybe one was going to attack the other.
So here they are two fun loving squirrels. They run right in front of my car. I tried to swerve and avoid them but I heard a thunk and I looked in my rearview mirror and I see one of the squirrels running in an erratic circle. His backhind is twitching. It is clear I broke the poor little things back. What made it worse was that the other squirrel was still playing, what looked like, chase.
I stopped and watched a moment longer, but the hit squirrel finally ran off into the bushes on the side of the road, his buddy following after him. I felt so horrible I went home and could not get that scene out of my head.
That was 12 years ago, I still feel horrible about it. I have a slightly irrational fear of hitting animals with my car now. To make matters worse, where I live we have a lot of squirrels and quite literally there is a new dead squirrel in the road every week. It does not help that the dumb little critters constantly dart out in front of cars...Darwin at work I suppose.
My problem about animals and cars got worse when I saw a guy driving his truck with a dog in the back. The dog was the same breed as my own. I watched the guy take a left turn and the dog fell out the back of the truck. It somehow held on. It hung from the side of the bed of the truck with one of its front paws, barely avoiding the fall and being tossed under the read wheels of the truck. Now I get quite nervous driving behind trucks with dogs in the back (why do ppl do this?!?) and I get a bit of melancholy when I see stray dogs wandering near busy streets. Nevermind that ther are some assholes that acually speed up and TRY to hit the animals.
And mind you this is coming from a guy that is otherwise very pragmatic about life. For good or ill, I just have a really soft spot of animals.
So here they are two fun loving squirrels. They run right in front of my car. I tried to swerve and avoid them but I heard a thunk and I looked in my rearview mirror and I see one of the squirrels running in an erratic circle. His backhind is twitching. It is clear I broke the poor little things back. What made it worse was that the other squirrel was still playing, what looked like, chase.
I stopped and watched a moment longer, but the hit squirrel finally ran off into the bushes on the side of the road, his buddy following after him. I felt so horrible I went home and could not get that scene out of my head.
That was 12 years ago, I still feel horrible about it. I have a slightly irrational fear of hitting animals with my car now. To make matters worse, where I live we have a lot of squirrels and quite literally there is a new dead squirrel in the road every week. It does not help that the dumb little critters constantly dart out in front of cars...Darwin at work I suppose.
My problem about animals and cars got worse when I saw a guy driving his truck with a dog in the back. The dog was the same breed as my own. I watched the guy take a left turn and the dog fell out the back of the truck. It somehow held on. It hung from the side of the bed of the truck with one of its front paws, barely avoiding the fall and being tossed under the read wheels of the truck. Now I get quite nervous driving behind trucks with dogs in the back (why do ppl do this?!?) and I get a bit of melancholy when I see stray dogs wandering near busy streets. Nevermind that ther are some assholes that acually speed up and TRY to hit the animals.
And mind you this is coming from a guy that is otherwise very pragmatic about life. For good or ill, I just have a really soft spot of animals.
ive been havin soem computer issues. anyways i built a sweet outdoor cage for the squirrel that sits off the ground. tomorrow im adding a big pen on the ground that she can climb down into and forage for food and play. sorry but i cant post pics of that..
she is getting to be big enuff to be released but i still need to teach her a few more things. after about 4 or 5 days of being in the outdoor pen i'll start leaving her out alll night. kinda like hardining off some plants heh. mostly what im feeding her is a gerbil mix with vitamins, dried corn on the cobs, acorns from outside, and 1 pecan a day for a treat. oh a lil bit of raisin bran crunch. she goes crazy for the pecans, but an inside squirrel can get some kind of deficiency if they eat too many pecans. when i first get em, usually the eyes have just opened, i bottle feed em goat milk, 1 part milk to 3 parts water. do not feed them store bought regular milk it will kill em. the goat milk is sold in grocery stores on the aisle with dehydrated milk. it comes in a can. thats it for now i'll check back in with some new pics and maybe a new squirrel soon...
