My pets and I

indubalram · Nov 19, 2014

drradha7 said: ↑

I am a human doctor but my passion is animals. I like all animals and like to bring them home!
I have 3 dogs, a boxer, a Dalmatian, and a terrier-indie cross. My boxer, Lizzy, passed from Cancer (Non – Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) 2 weeks back. The Dalmatian and the terrier are adopted dogs from the local animal shelter. I recently, as recent as 2 days back, adopted another abandoned boxer from the local animal shelter.
The journeys that my pets and my 2 human sons take me through is a subject of most of my articles and blogs!

We found a baby squirrel on the road one sunday morning! My son had taken the dogs for a walk as he does every sunday. He found Lizzy, my boxer, and Sandy, the Dalmatian, very interested in some object on the ground, and high pitched squeaks coming from it. He bent down to investigate and found this tiny sweetheart on the ground, near a vehicle tyre, screaming bloody murder for all he was worth! My son lovingly brought him home to be looked after, after searching all around that area for the mother somewhere up the tree.

It was a he, and a mighty tiny soul at that, hardly moving around. I checked him out for any injuries, broken bones, and i couldnt see any. It was really tiny and not opening its eyes fully. There were also no obvious signs of open injuries. I reckoned it must have fallen off the tree after a predator got its mother.

We placed it in a shoe box initially, packed with paper and cotton, a small cup of milk and some nuts (!!). It lay there snugly without moving. I then fitted a rubber tube to an injection syringe and force-fed 1 ml of milk to the baby every 2 hrs.

I continued to keep a watch on the baby on and off. It snuggled right inside the towel, cotton, paper i had kept and i was a tad worried it would suffocate! I kept the shoe box half closed to keep bright light out. It did not budge but kept sleeping.

By late evening, there was some squeaking and activity in the shoe box! My father was also very worried about its well-being and he also periodically kept checking. Having 3 inquisitive dogs around did not help matters, even though the shoe box was kept at a height to keep their noses out of the squirrel’s area.
After some 4-5 milk feeds, it finally opened its eyes fully, and started moving around its new home! We decided to call it “Jerry” after Tom & Jerry!
Now my dad was apprehensive about its activity attracting undue attention from my 3 brats and the neighborhood wild cats. So we refurbished an old cage i had for my previous Lhasa apso dog, which i was using for air travel, as a new home for Jerry. I cleaned it, re-plastered its side walls, which were giving way, with able help from my enthusiastic son, and made it comfortable by putting my terrier, Rufus’ old bed, the same towel used earlier and the small soft cloth with which Jerry was familiar. I now had space to put in a small bowl of water as well.
The 2 hrly feeds were extended to 3 hrly ones. He now struggled against the rubber tube being inserted into his mouth!! I had to pry open the mouth! Boy, he had sharp teeth! And sharp claws as well! Ultimately, he got the hang of it and started clutching the rubber tube with his cute little front paws and suckled the tube as i pushed the syringe to deliver the milk! Boy, do we learn fast in the animal kingdom!
During one of the feeds, Sandy came to investigate and almost gobbled him up! She got multiple raps on her nose for that and finally resigned herself to her corner! Lizzy, who’s a mortal enemy of all creatures scurrying around, kept licking the baby as it scurried into my arm! She did not pose a danger. She only wanted to investigate as to how a squirrel really feels like!!!!
Rufus, the gentleman, took one perfunctory sniff at the baby and then decided it wasnt worth fussing!
And so we kept the squirrel, Jerry, for almost 2 months, inviting lots of curiosity from my pet dogs and probably some jealousy too. My son and I and even my father, we took turns to feed him. He progressed to solid feeds, mainly sapota and banana. He became a creature of habits and would wake up on cue, excrete on cue and sleep on cue. He was even allowed on the tree in our house under supervision, in case he become a delicacy for the neighborhood cat!
2 months later, we found him lying still in side his cage. We conjecture that he must have had some internal injury during his fall, and that must have led to his demise.
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Very nice ! so cute. :hatsoff

indubalram · Nov 19, 2014

May be your other pets knew he was thinkingsmileysick and will die soon.

deepv · Nov 19, 2014

very sad .But he was very well taken care by your family.Lucky Jerry

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