HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

I have received a lot of mail recently of folks looking for the story I ran back around the first of the year. It was a story of our squirrel rescue. I have decided to rerun it by popular demand. The story itself is not very literary. I think people just like to see cute photos.

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It was one of those days that just doesn’t start out quite right. I didn’t feel like making breakfast, but I felt like eating a multi-food item meal. Cereal just wouldn’t do. By the time I got rolling, breakfast was no longer served in this one horse town (okay, I’ll be honest, its a no horse town). So, I decided to go all the way into the next county where there was a gleaming, brand new IHOP. I never made it to IHOP as you can read BY CLICKING HERE.

When I finally got back home, with our new charge, I decided to walk Good Girl II (aka GiGi - not to be confused with GoodGirl I, Gillian, the Mastiff) and take Ollie, one of our two, for a walk around the perimeter of the house. All of the sudden, something fell from the sky. They stopped in their tracks and their noses were touching the same thing. G.G. and Ollie both had their ears perked up and heads cocked in youthful curiosity.

This is what I found at the end of their noses…

They did not try to bite or hurt the little one. Apparently, he/she had fallen from the tree. The little squirrel tried to run away, but only got a few feet dragging a leg. Perhaps the dogs sensed another animal in trouble or pain. I have heard of elephants trying to save baby rhions or hippos that are not their friends in the wild from tar pits or swamps before, so its not too strange I suppose for hounds to pause at a squirrel.

I called a neighbor to come out, as my hands were full with two tangled leashes and the squirrel was put in a dog carrier with a towel. We both looked at eachother and shook our heads.

Maybe it was like the scene in 101 Dalmatians where dogs passed a message along from neighborhood to neighborhood until it got to the right place…a little bird let everyone know that day that we were already off of our schedule by taking a stray in, so what’s a few more.

I remembered there was a lady I met while seeking help for a raccoon. She couldn’t help us then, but did rehabilitate squirrels, so I called her up and she came to get the little one. He/she was not full grown yet and we were hoping that it was a broken leg, which just needed time versus deeper injuries.

So, as promised, that is the story of the squirrel who fell from the sky in front of some dogs and lived to tell the tale.

Well, it is just a few more days to October. Many children I know have been talking about what they are going to be for Halloween for the past several months now. I remember my suffering parents had to watch us scramble, the procrastinators we were. Inevitably, with the aid of all the robes and bandannas in the house, my brother was yet another Ninja. It rotated every other year with being Jason from Friday the 13th just because he owned a hockey mask. While most of my friends decided hat a punk rocker costume was the easiest thing to put together, I was always cutting up or drawing on a box.  Hey, I could have been a Tetra Pak.  More on what this is later.

Now that I am an adult, I am more concerned about what goes into the stomachs of the children than what goes outside of them. I don’t have any children myself, but I have neighbors under five years old (oh, yes, they do live with parents. The neighbor couple is older than five years old), the nieces and nephew of My Favorite Guy, and of course, my cousins children. It is not so much about nutritional value. I will let the actual parents worry about that. It is the big sugar rush that may occur that I could somehow be in the line of fire of. I won’t pretend it doesn’t exist. I remember late night candy trading sessions with my friends and brother. We crashed right there on the living room floor.

Luckily, there is a Trick Or Treat Me blog which helps the adults in charge make the right decision. It also suggests that one should give out milk for calcium, in the new safe Tetra Pak cartons. I was a little skeptical about giving out milk, but apparently, Hershey’s Chocolate milk comes this way and is supposedly safe for many hours outside of the refrigerator.

In correspondence with this, you can Trick Or Treat Me on Twitter, or anyone else you know. For every tweet originating from Trick or Tweet Me, Tetra Pak will donate 10 cents to the World Wild Life fund. You can choose if your twitter friend deserves a Trick or a Tweet.   The more people you Trick or Treat, the more likely you are to become the scariest Twit on Twitter.

If you want to Trick or Treat me, I am at @thesnackhound.  I’ll Trick or Tweet you back!

I include a few things in my kit when it comes to wildlife rescue.

1) A small dog crate is the first item. This is the hard sided variety.
2) A large towel. They are great for wrapping around the cage to keep warmth in or light out. You can also loop a thick over an animal’s head to cradle the neck of a deer, or to protect yourself from a bite.
3) A torn towel or towels. These can be used for a variety of purposes. You can use them to tie to a collar of a dog as a handle. You can use them to wrap wounds as well. If a turtle shell is broken, you can also try to hold it together temporarily.

The item that I never thought of that would be great for the arsenal is night vision monoculars or binoculars. I never try to run after a healthy animal. If they can run away, they are sometimes okay. However, if an injured animal is under a car, or has fallen somewhere in the brush, something like that would be indispensable at night.

As anything else, you get what you pay for.  However, I have found quite a few at the $250.00 and below that are very affordable to start out with.  I know, with Murphy’s Law being what it is, I will buy one and never need it.  However, there were times that I wish I did.  I think its something I will consider in the future for sure.

I have been such a geek for 5.11 Tactical gear from the LaPoliceGear.com site lately. I always love cool little gadgets, but I recently found a utility knife that is to my liking. Is it really considered a “knife,” as there is a flashlight in it.  A flashlight can’t cut anything, but it can sure help on late night happenings, like hikes and wildlife rescue.   Often, when I come into that type of encounter, I don’t exactly have a big flashlight on me, nor do I have something to cut a collar or rope that has gotten caught.

Of course, I will have to find out exactly how potent the little light is.  However, it is probably just enough in the dark to see what you are doing so that you don’t grab the southbound end of a northbound fox or dog.  It seems to be exactly what I need, having a scissor like tool as well.   I am going to order one and let you know exactly what I think.

There are many opportunities to volunteer in the spirit of the holiday season, whether it is to give Thanks, to wish others a Merry Christmas, or to simply start off with a good feeling at the end of the year. On Volunteer Match, there are many calls for volunteers to sponsor a family, participate in donation drives, and to round up toys for collection.

One of the more unusual opportunities is the call to be Santa for a homeless ferret. Ferrets are sometimes owned by people who don’t fully understand the care they will need before they buy one. Rather, they think that they will learn as they go along, not thinking that ferret proofing a home could prevent a lot of accidents for household items or the animals, or aggravation that leads people to give up.

Wind & Willows Ferret Rescue cares for abused, confiscated, and neglected ferrets, and the Santa Paws drive is a way to promote education and to provide ferrets with things that would continue their care. There are food, toys, and bedding that they could use. Shelters are also allowed to participate in submitting the information about their homeless/adoptable ferrets.

For more information, check out the listing on VolunteerMatch.

The area that our house is in is actually designated as a no hunting area and a bird sanctuary.  The set up we had was a birdbath, a corn holder for squirrels, and a little tray on a chain for bird feed.  One time, I left the seed on the back porch and the crafty squirrels saw it on the table and ripped through the screen.  Not a good move!

There are many species including jays, cardinal, woodpeckers, and tufted titmice.  A tufted titmouse is a cute little gray bird with an orange beak and a little triangular tuft of feathers on its head if you have not seen one.  A few people in the area have hummingbird feeders that are well populated, but I have yet seen a hummingbird. Once, I thought I did, but it turned out to be a hummingbird moth.

I think I just answered my question.  If I had a hummingbird feeder, I would probably see them show up.  I think the one at left is cute because it has the appearance of a regular bird feeder, and it would blend into a woodland setting and feeders for other species.  With the studies showing the fluctuations in bees, it is so important to support the other pollinators such as these birds.   There are many other beautiful feeders at Birdfeeders.com, and also a reference library of birds and their likes.   I found that there is more than one species of these tiny birds in my area that I am going to keep an eye out for now.  It might be a good idea to get to know who is in your neighborhood so you can lay out the right feast.

One evening we were coming home late. Connecting the two major roads, there is a long road dotted with farms. The car in front of us swerved and hit a raccoon. The raccoon pulled his/herself to the side of the road. The driver slowed for a moment to look, and then sped off. We, as animal lovers, stopped. The poor thing looked like its hind legs or pelvis had been crushed. The night was unseasonably cold and we were afraid that the young raccoon would be eaten alive by a bird of prey.

The raccoon pulled his/herself under the fence of the property the accident happened in front of. It looked like a horse fence that I could easily slip through, but we decided that we should ask the owner of the property if we could enter. The lady of the house came out and loaned us a small dog carrier. We held the carrier in front of the raccoon and eased him/her in. I know that sounds crazy, but we didn’t know what else to do.

We stopped at the vet’s office on the way home and they gave us a list of numbers of people that helped wildlife. Unfortunately, many of them stopped helping raccoons because when they mature they can get a little testy.   It was apparent that we weren’t to get help that night, so we took the raccoon home.   We put the dogs in the bedroom, and covertly moved the raccoon to the guest bedroom at the opposite side of the house.  To this day I will never know how we did it without two scent hounds knowing about it.   They sensed that “something was up” but did not suspect there was a scared but living creature in the house.

I did manage to get ahold of someone on the wildlife hotline and they instructed me that the raccoon was in shock, so not to give any food or water right now.  The raccoon sat in the cage and just looked at us. He/she was a juvenile…older than a baby but not quite mature yet. If not in shock, perhaps the reaction would have been different.  However, I really do believe animals do know sometimes when you are trying to help them.

The advice was to keep any injured animal “Dark, warm, and quiet,” and if ever encountering other injured wildlife to do the same thing when in doubt.   We had that covered keeping the raccoon on the far side of the house, in the dark, in a blanketed dog crate.     The woman instructed me to take the raccoon to a particular vet who helped wildlife.  If the raccoon was healable, maybe he/she could be returned to the wild someday.

We arrived at the vet and were told that they would run some tests to see if there was hope, but were adamant that before they did anything to talk to us.   When they called us back in, they had already euthanized him.  We were beside ourselves.   They said the pelvis was crushed, and it was suspected there could be damage to internal organs.  I was so upset that I didn’t get to say “goodbye.”   If it had been a dog or cat, they would have found out if there was internal damage or not, I felt.  I understand if he could not have been returned to the wild, but I was so upset more wasn’t done or we couldn’t have tried to take him elsewhere.

I also learned to have a raccoon was illegal because of their nature unless you had a special license, and because we couldn’t legally possess a raccoon that is also why he was euthanized.   If it had been a squirrel or another animal, maybe we would have been able to take him somewhere else.  I know that sometimes you can’t save an animal, but I still remember those eyes looking out at me from the crate to this very day.  Maybe the point was just to not let this beautiful creature be torn to shreds by another animal or freeze to death that night, and let him go peacefully.   I just hope I did right by him. I know I tried.

Many times when there is construction, or there is severe weather, deer and other animals come to higher ground. We have bushes and other natural cover for many woodland creatures in our yard, and we welcome the visitors. However, one has to be careful. The larger visitors can not only damage potted plants, which is minor compared to the harm they can cause to themselves.  I hate the thought of calling any sort of wildlife removal as I don’t want them to be harmed.   We have worked with wildlife rescue before but large animals can do a lot of damage when they are scared.  I know how my dog reacts during a storm, I can’t imagine handling a large buck.

There is some very humane deer repellent that Havaheart puts out that keeps deer away from your windows, and the plants directly around your door. Dear Away contains Putrescent Egg, which dries and is undetectable to the humans.  It doesn’t harm them, but they can’t stand the smell.   There is also DeerOff works on scent and taste.   I normally don’t like to mess with my wild neighbors, but natural alternatives like these are preferable to them coming through a screen window or eating something harmful to them.

Ratitude is a blog I just discovered, and the latest post made me stop in my tracks so I could run over here and tell you about it.   The latest post is a very touching story about kindness shown to an injured wild rat from a very unlikely person.

“Shortly after I woke up this morning, Hubby came back from walking the dogs and told me his mom had just found a wild rat in her yard and it looked like it couldn’t’t move.

First I was astounded that she rescued a rat. Despite my best effort, my MIL continues to HATE rats. But, she felt sorry for it laying there so helpless and she had ants crawling on her so she scooped her off the ground in a plastic shovel and put her in a chair in the shade and gave her some food and water.”

Travel over to Ratitude to see what happened next.

I’ll be bookmarking one for future updates on the story.

(Photo above: How much ratitude is in that rat?)