About three years ago, I agreed to dog sit for my parents while they were on vacation. At approximately 6:23 AM, Snickers, my little furry terrier mix mutt sister (Rest in Peace Snickers), woke me up to let her outside. I opened the door to the already somewhat sunny backyard and walked out with the dog. She ran around the perimeter of the pool and through the various bushes and shrubs that line the six-foot tall wood plank fence (I never really understood the difference between a bush and shrub, so I looked them up online and found out they are one in the same. BTW – I have Attention Deficit Disorder and an obsession for looking up things online). Snickers was having fun running and then out of nowhere, I hear shrieking. I peer into the shrub where the shrieking is coming from and I see one of Snickers tan little front legs bent, so I immediately and instinctively reach into the shrub to grab her thinking somehow she broke her leg. There I am holding her with her back to me with each of my hands under her front legs and notice her leg is not broken. There is squirrel, who blends perfectly with the fur on Snicker’s leg, dangling from her right leg. Now the shrieking is coming from me. I’m yelling “OH MY G-D, OH MY G-D” over and over again and without thinking I am swinging the dog in an attempt to get the squirrel off her leg. The squirrel finally lets go and drops to the ground. I then watch perhaps one of the creepiest events I’ve ever witnessed in my life. The squirrel slinked back into the bushes by use of it’s front legs and it’s hind legs dragged behind.
At this point, the large portion of the crisis is over, I open the back door to the house and start yelling for boyfriend, who was staying with me. He comes bounding down the stairs thinking there’s a fire. I explain what just happened and he goes outside, grabs one of the pool nets on a very long pole and starts banging on the fence in the area where I said the squirrel went. The squirrel emerges and manages to climb the fence only using it’s front legs. When the squirrel reaches the top of the fence, my boyfriend knocks it over the fence into the neighbors yard. I felt so bad for the squirrel, but was more concerned about Snickers. She was about 14 at the time and was beginning to have signs of old age. I didn’t know what was wrong with the squirrel and Snickers little leg was bleeding. My boyfriend and I found bandages in downstairs closet and wrapped Snicker’s leg.
I called Animal Control because I was concerned about and for the squirrel. I told the gentleman on the phone what had transpired. He explained there was probably nothing to worry about regarding disease and that it’s a common misconception that most squirrels carry rabies. He asked about the squirrel’s whereabouts. I told him that the squirrel was in the neighbor’s yard. The tone of the Animal Control man’s voice changed to one of extreme concern and contempt. He said I should go to the neighbor’s house to notify them of their new paraplegic yard guest because while the squirrel would most likely die in a couple days due to it’s condition, which was probably caused by being hit by a car, it would be really horrible for the squirrel to be laying on the ground still alive and be eaten by fire ants.
It was too early to go to the neighbor’s house or the vet, so I took a shower and got ready to go to a client meeting for work. I decided to drop the dog off at the vet, go to my client meeting, and go back to my parent’s house after the meeting to talk to the neighbor’s.
I went to the neighbor’s house to discuss what happened. They said they heard me screaming and wondered what was going on (way to be neighborly). The neighbors proceeded to say they saw the squirrel and knocked it back into my parent’s yard, which I found really hard to believe. I never saw the squirrel again and Snickers ended up being just fine.
