Because I love you and was bored (avoiding work), I created this little comic strip to give your day a lift! I added a little more about "story" after the comic strip. Enjoy!
A friend sent me 15 or so pictures of this rescued moose. HER friend related the story as follows. Her friend's friend found the baby in the creek on his property. The guy fishes him out. Shortly thereafter, the guy finds the baby moose back in the creek. Guy fishes him out. Baby follows him home. He's only got a 1-room log cabin so he takes the moose over to a buddy, who makes sure the baby gets to the wildlife rehab people.
Those who follow the blog know we've rescued Evil Kitty and Sweetie.
Have you ever rescued any wildlife? We were always bringing things home as kids.
30 comments:
Deb, I'd keep the guy in pic 1, LOL!
My oldest brother was always bringing strays home, animals and people. He once brought a nest of baby bunnies home after a riding mower had killed it's mother. My mom got up every three hours for weeks to feed them milk from a medicine dropper. It was heartbreaking to watch them die, one by one. (Lesson: do NOT feed baby bunnies lettuce.)
He also brought a dog home that chewed several holes in the sheetrock of our garage while we ran ads looking for the owner, and more cats than I can even recall.
Some of the stray people he brought home were downright scary! There's such a thing as being *too* soft a touch!
Kylie, I'm with you on adopting cute guy with soft heart as long as he's housebroken.
Let's see...my faithful Aussie brought me a baby bunny once--still twitching. My shrieking hurt his feelings terribly. Bunny quickly expired.
A chickadee flew into my office window and conked itself out. I'd read that you should pick it up and warm it in your hand. If it was only stunned, it will come to and fly away. It worked. I felt like Snow White.
Oh man, Deb, I want a moose...and the guy in the pic.
Yeah, we took in evvvverything. Swallows, bunnies, kittens, ducklings, killdear, pigeons. Most of them didn't make it. But some of them did. We have great stories and sad stories.
Thanks for the adorable pictures.
Our last house had a wooded area behind it and my boys brought home box turtles, frogs, crawdads from the creek -- stuff like that. #2 son found a baby chipmunk once and we tried to keep it alive. He was crushed when it died. Our cats would bring things home -- usually dead already.
And add me to the list of people who'd take in the guy in the photo.
Marilyn
My husband rescued a crow and a litter of opossums (I guess they are called litters.) Does taking a bat outside count? Never knew I could duck so fast.
Aww, your Evil Kitty looks exactly like my Maxwell, including the white smudge on his chest.
I've never rescued anything because my mother put the healthy fear of rabies or worms or any other icky kind of disease into me. I like to admire all the city cats who seem to gravitate to our sundeck (and always pee on the window in greeting) but I know they belong to someone, and my cats would not appreciate the new addition. Heck my oldest cat only grows more 'in hate' with the new cat every day. Sigh...
Kylie !! Aw, how horrible to watch baby bunnies die. :/ Especially after all that work.
Stray people !! Okay, that's scary! I wish I didn't live in a world where I felt that way, but I can't imagine bringing home a stranger/stray.
Kathleen- Totally Snow White!! I never heard that about holding/warming them in your hands and waiting for the Disney moment. We have glass that pretty much wraps around the kitchen and we've had some bird conkings occasionally.
Lois-- Yep, I thought the guy was worth a look. (g) The memories of the "efforts" at saving the wildlife are pretty good. They didn't always make it but when they did...! That was worth it.
Marilyn-- Crawdads! LOL! We brought those home too, but to eat. At the family cabin, we'd go out into the swampy woods and look for those suckers. Some were big enough to be classed as small "lobsters." Well, that's what we liked to think of them. I'm sure Mother was much less impressed but she never said so.
We brought home several turtles but we could never find them once they got big enough that they lived in the back year. Apparently they tunneled out or something.
Sidney! Crows! You get the award because they just don't sound like they'd trigger the "Oooh you poor babies" emotion. And a bat?
Yep, you're the award winner so far.
Michele-- Mother had to have the rabies talk with us because we ran wild over at the cabin so we had to have some boundaries.
I didn't know you had a relative of Evil Kitty! Our 14/15 year old cat who pretty much lives on our bed doesn't mind her at all. As long as she doesn't get on the bed, look at him funny, or breath. LOL!
They don't really fight. The old guy ignores her and she routinely tries to establish a relationship with him. That results in a game of "King Of the Bed." He beats the snot out of her with his paws. (like a boxer) and she huffs away.
Lois - you want a moose? Really? Oh wait, forgot who I was talking to for a minute :o0
And yeah, okay. I want a moose too. My DH says I'd have the horses in the house if I could.
As to rescuing - always & forever. Had a lot of bird funerals at our house when i was a kid :o( for the ones that didn't make it.
My last rescue was a bunny. My cat brought it into the house through the doggie door. Seriously. It's a problem. It's like wild kingdom around here some days. Bunnies hop fast on carpet. Who'd a thunk it?
Cindy-- LOL! I'm picturing you in full "bunny wrangling" mode.
yee-haw hop-a-long!
Add me to the "take the cute guy" list. What a sweetheart for rescuing this baby moose. Love the pics of the moose, too - have never see this little of a baby.
Yeah, we tried rescuing all kinds of things when I was a kid. Can't even count how many things died. Birds, especially.
My Aussie brought a very tiny, completely unharmed, baby rabbit into the house just a couple of weeks ago. He dropped the hairless, eyes still closed thing by my son who was playing video games. I kept it warm wrapped in a blanket in the garage overnight and did some research the next day.
Turns out the best thing to do is put it back in the nest. Apparently the mother will come back for up to a week looking for missing babies.
Finally found the nest in our raspberry patch in the back yard, put the baby in there, covered it, kept the dogs and cats out of the backyard and the baby was gone by nighttime.
I'm hoping mommy came and got her, but who knows.
Big hearts, all of us, I guess!
It's what I do now. Have been taking in and taking care of ferals for 14 years. I'm still devestated that the last kitten that showed up on my doorstep with pneumonia didn't make it even with vet care. I've even tried to save baby mice but they didn't make it (my daughter brought them home after they fell off a garage roof). But I did just help a baby bird that did make it :)
We rescued and neutered or spayed every cat that was dumped in the barn at the end of our driveway. We had a hard time giving them away, so ended up with eleven cats at one time.
Helen-- Hey, I can't believe you found the nest. That's amazing. And I'm so glad you did the research and knew to put it back. I choose to firmly believe that momma came back.
And how 'bout them bunnies? So maternal!
Estella-- We always had a full house when I was young. Usually 3 dogs and as many cats. (Plus things like a quail, a raccoon, a coda mundi- don't ask.) Once you take them in to help them...I just get too attached too.
As an adult I figure I'm good for 2 strays at any one time, but after that I say we're full-up and that's it for a while. Okay, so we have 3 now and before not-evil Kitty died last year we had 4 strays. But that's my limit!
Catslady !! Good on you.
It's so sad when they don't make it. Heartbreaking because so often it looks like they *might* make it and then all that hope is crushed.
I tend to anxiously look for any good sign and that leads to unrealistic expectations sometimes when you're nursing an animal.
My kids and I rescue lots of animals. Mostly Raccoons but we have a possum now that we rescued last year after her mama was killed. We had a fawn earlier this summer but he didn't make it. We have had chipmunks, squirrls, lots of raccoons, bunnies etc. It breaks our hearts when they don't make it but we always learn from it so lately we save more than we loose.
http://justcallmegladys.blogspot.com/
to check out some of our animals.
Those of you who help whatever kinds of animals BLESS YOU!
Anonymous Gladys-- Oh! All the animals are so cute. It was like a trip through my childhood since we were always bringing home something.
Snickers brings back some memories of my raccoon, Bo. Took the curlers out of my hair at night.
My mom never had to tell us kids not to bring home strays because our step-dad always brought home the best strays! We had a bull snake named "Retread" (you guessed it, it was run over) for ten or more years; a squirrel named "Bomber" who became my parents' B&B (www.allensparklodge.com) mascot; two geese my mom named "Thanksgiving" and "Christmas" because that's when she threatened to eat them; a bunny named "Peter Rabbit" who grew to be ENORMOUS; and numerous other little animals that didn't make it. It was always a zoo at our house, but we learned a lot about bottle feeding every few hours, the thrill of saving a little life, and the heartbreak of not being able to save one.
We raised a squirrel once, but it was raising 4 baby possums when I worked for the Zoological Society that was the toughest. They had to be tube fed at first--a skill I had to acquire.
Tube feeding - ugh!
GunDiva & Terry--
Bottle feeding I'm great at, but tube feeding is very delicate on the tiny ones. I'm always nervous if I have to do that and I haven't in years so I think I'd have to bring in my friend the dog breeder who rarely loses a puppy because she's absolutely expert at making sure every puppy in the litter thrives!
She pretty much lives in the whelping box with momma any time she has a litter.
Deb, I did have training from the zoo vet in the proper techniques. They were just too little to suckle, and using an eye dropper wasn't going to get them the nourishment they needed. They got big enough to eat on their own, eventually, and one made an excellent Outreach critter.
Driving to a friend's in the country one night, I saw a rabbit writhing in the other lane. Thinking I'd have to (gulp) put it out of its misery with my bare hands, I got out, but it just had a bad hind leg. So, I picked it up, got back in the car--driving a stick shift was a bit@#--and took it to my friend's. I kept it in a box in my apartment for the weekend, then let it go in a nearby field.
Laurie Kuna
Terry-- Yep,proper training is a must for that tube feeding. Still you're my hero for being able to do it!
Laurie-- Hey, girl! I can just see your face as you stopped. This is now my new story about "facing what you fear." That's where the courage is. Having the guts, being willing to do the hard things. Good on you!
And of course you were rewarded for that courage because you didn't have to do the hard thing after all.
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