Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Real squirrels don't go "woof"

The week following the truck drowning incident consisted of even MORE photopoints!
The heat became unbearable from the four wheeler so I took Shrek out again. If figured it would be OK since I wasn't going near any wet areas on this particular part of the management area. I worked till around noon and decided that I'd take a break and eat some lunch. I turned down a road and found some shade. I then turned the truck around in a fire break and went to park it underneath the shade. As I approached the shady area, I noticed something sitting in the middle of the road about 60 yards away.
Wow, that's one goofy looking fox squirrel, I thought to myself as I drove the truck toward it. Why is it sitting like that? There's not even any oaks for it around here. It's...oh...What the?

My thoughts drifted as I realized what it was as it ran right to the truck. A dog! I really small dog. It hopped up in my lap when I opened the door.
A yorkie. WAY out in the management area (over 5 miles in). He looked quite hot, so I poured some water that I had in my cooler out for him and gave him a drink. I had no idea how long he'd been in the wild, so I also gave him a dog's natural food of choice: Cheetos.

Not knowing what to do with the dog, I drove back to the office to see if I could dump the responsibility off to someone else. Naturally, no one was at the office when I returned. I had no choice but to lock him in my bathroom with some water and a bowl of Cheetos. I then returned to work for the day. When the end of the day rolled around, I took the dog back to the office and told my boss (as I held the dog out with one hand): "I found this out in the woods today...What should I do with him?"

Luckily he was cute, so my boss took him home and some of my fellow employees set about looking for the owners. The next day, we discovered the owners had lost the dog up on Highway 441 about 6 or 7 miles away. Why the dog ran all the way out there, and how he didn't get eaten by eagles/hawks/bobcats/coyotes/gators/a big snake or crushed by cows/trucks/cars will remain a mystery.
Goes to show that not every animal you find in the wild is considered "wildlife".

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