Squirrel Update

I received an email from my friend who works at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in regard to the squirrel I brought in last Friday. It turns out that my completely random guess at his gender was correct. He's a boy. She said that there was an abcess on his back that was drained. The redness I thought I saw on his hands turned out to be nothing. She also said:

I looked in on him and he was lying in his hammock and growled at me. Good sign.

I'm cautiously optimistic that as long as the antibiotics do what they should, this case will have a positive outcome.

Yay!

The WRC actually had an open house this last Sunday. Anna and I went. Upon arrival Anna got to pick out an "injured" stuffed animal and take it through the various steps an animal would go through when they  are treated.

She picked out a duck. It had a fractured leg and wing. We went to radiology and saw what an x-ray of a fractured leg would look like, had a bandage put on the ducks wing, made a quick visit to parasitology to rid it of fleas and such and finally brought  the duck to the ward to get it all set up in a cage.

I really hate that word. Cage. But that's what they are. And I explained to Anna that the cages are there so that the people at WRC can help the animals heal and eventually be released to their home. I also told her that the animals may not realize that, so they might be scared of the cage and of the people trying to help.

Anna decided to call them kennels instead.

We watched a slide-show about how the place works and it showed the various animals they rehabilitate. Whenever the presenter would say how many animals they take in (for example, something like 2,000 rabbits, if I remember correctly) Anna would say, "Wow, that's a lot!"

I agree with her. That is a lot. They take in thousands of animals every year, rehabilitate those they can and give a painless death to those who don't have a chance of making it. I feel lucky to have this place in my backyard.

Oh, and we didn't get to see any of the animals currently being rehabilitated there, because of an agreement that the WRC has with the DNR. As much as I wanted to see them all, it makes sense. That many people walking around would scare most of them, and it's not really the intent of the WRC to showcase live animals. It makes me respect them even more.

My friend at the WRC said she'll let me know when they release the squirrel, and they'll do it right where I found him. There's no way to know how long the rehabilitation will take, but when he's released I'll post another update, hopefully with photos of the little guy running back home.