Prolly not too good for my rep...

   I really didn't want to begin my day by killing a baby squirrel. In fact, it being my day off, how I really wanted to start my day was by sleeping in. Then my wife put her hand gently on my shoulder, kissed me on the cheek, and said, "guess what your dog has done." Yeah, he's her dog when she gets home from work, and he's wagging his tail so hard he's hip checking the furniture, but he my dog when he's "done something."
   It seems he had caught a squirrel, and he was playing with it. The wife had managed to get him to drop it, and come back inside. She then woke me up, at six-thirty in the morning, to inform me that it was lying in the back yard, injured, but still alive, and I had to go deal with it.
   I knew right away it was a baby. No self respecting adult squirrel is going to get himself caught by an overgrown puppy like Shadow. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, slipped into a pair of runners, and ventured out into the too-fresh morning to see what the situation was.

   It was lying in the middle of the yard, hair all matted and wet from being in the dog's mouth. I couldn't see any obvious sign of blood. It was breathing, and looked up at me when I approached. I wasn't sure how badly hurt it was. It might simply have been frightened half to death. I decided to leave it there for an hour, or so, to see if it would regain some strength - and sense - and crawl away. After spending an hour with the dog alternately staring at me, then staring at the door and whining, I went out to have a second look.
   He obviously wasn't getting any better. His head was hanging down in the grass below him. He was still breathing, but he made no movement when I approached. It was clear he wasn't going to be hopping up and running up a tree. With a sigh, I got out a pair of gloves and a plastic bag. I picked him up, and eased him into the bag. "Sorry, little guy," I said, as I tied the bag closed. Then I swung the bag up, whacked it hard on the sidewalk, and dropped it into the garbage can.

   Oh, come on! What else was I going to do?

Tags: Shadow, baby squirrel