Squirrel update

For the first 5 days of his freedom, Monkey's life followed a routine - spend the day climbing trees and foraging for food, show up when I called for him in the evening, climb aboard my arm, eat a bunch of walnuts, drink a lot of water, move back to our screen room for the night and sleep in his cardboard box filled with strips of fleece cloth. Each morning I would give him some walnuts, some water, then take him back outside. Usually he wasn't anxious to leave me, but eventually he would hop onto a tree and disappear for most of the day.


Night 6, he didn't come "home". Night 7 either. I spent much of those two days approaching and talking to every squirrel (and we have a lot of squirrels here) that appeared at our squirrel feeders, holding out walnuts. They all ran away as I approached. No Monkey. Thank goodness we have no close neighbors, as I'm sure I would have been labeled "that crazy lady who talks to squirrels".


By Day 8, I was quite worried. Sure, maybe he just didn't need me anymore, but I didn't think that was the case for my little Monkey who was freakishly attached to me. Well, that afternoon he reappeared, very hungry and very thirsty and from what I could tell, not really doing very well. I brought him into our screen room and he had no interest in doing anything. He just wanted to be close to me. I hadn't seen him so mellow since he was just a "wee baby". Of course it might have had something to do with the fact that it was 90 degrees and he wears a fur coat. The photo below shows how he spent most of the afternoon - draped on me as I read a book.





By evening he seemed OK, and the next morning he was as playful as ever. That afternoon he showed up for a handout, but he didn't come back for the night. Today I found him at one of the feeders - seems to be doing great. He took the walnuts that I offered, let me pet him, but didn't seem to care when I walked away. I guess my little boy is growing up.





squirrel rehabilitation