This little girl is unique. She was the first of her kind to end up in our cache.  She still holds a dear space in my son's heart. Allow me to tell you her story...

It was a beautiful fall afternoon in 2004, and the kids were outside, where all good kids should be on such a nice day. I was busy indoors cleaning the house. I had just started on the kitchen when my son hollered from the back door. I went to see what he wanted. He looked at me, and with pleading eyes said, "Can we keep it?" He proceeded to hold out his hands, and in them was the most adorable little baby grey squirrel.

We had never had a squirrel in our cache before. I looked at this baby. I looked at my son. I told him I had no idea how to take care of a squirrel. He suggested asking Christie, who is a 28 year vet tech, maybe she would know. I looked at the baby again. I could just see that this was something he really wanted to do. He wanted to care for this baby. So, Twitch became the newest member of the family.

In the beginning, since we didn't know what they eat, and she was acting like she was starving to death, my son offered her some cow's milk. She then settled down into a aquarium with a heating pad under one side of it to keep her warm. (From caring for birds for so many years, we know that when in doubt, the first thing you can try to do is incubate.) She snuggled right into the receiving blanket that we also put into the cage. Then we were off to make phone calls and search the net to see what we could find about the care of this little one.

We found a few really good sources of information, and a wonderful on-line store where we could purchase things specifically for this tiny fuzzball of hyperactivity. I also made a call to our local pet store where we were informed of what type of formula she needed. (We were  emphatically told that cow's milk is a big no-no.) So my son immediately took off to the pet store to buy what she needed.

Twitch was a delight from day one, and a demanding little bugger to boot! Her heart belonged exclusively to him. She saw him as "Mom". When she was hungry and he was no where to be seen, she would do her high pitched squirrel call....as a baby squirrel would call it's mother. God forbid he walked past her cage, and didn't take her out to play! She'd have a stroke! She would screech for him until he came back to give her his undivided attention. He doted on her. He was her constant companion, and her favorite tree. She was forever climbing on him, and hiding things in his pockets. She even slept with one of his shirts. (It was funky, but she loved the smell of him. If you tried to remove it, she would nip at you!) I have never seen a bond so strong between a human and a critter as the bond between these two. She was always happiest when she was with him. She hated, and I do mean HATED, when he had to go to school! I had to stay on my toes or she'd holler all day long! As soon as he was in the door, at her side was where he could be found. For the next couple of months, that boy hardly ever went outdoors, unless it was for her.

We worked in feeding shifts during the night. My son would take one, I'd take the other. (I've since found out, even when it was my shift, he'd peek to make sure she was being fed.) During one of the day time feedings, with me watching on, I decided to narrate what Twitch was thinking as she was eating. It went something like this:

My son was laughing hysterically! I was saying all of this as fast as Twitch was moving.

Luckily for us, the round-the-clock feedings, every four to five hours, didn't have to last very long, since we discovered she was older than we originally thought. She was about 4-6 weeks. My son did  such a good job helping take care of this baby! I got him up for school in the morning at six and went back to bed. Before he left for school, he tried to feed her again. (He didn't know I had fed her right before he got up.) He left me a note saying she wasn't hungry, and could I try to feed her again later? (Awe!!!) After two weeks, we started her on seeds, a little fruit, and vegetables. She took right to them.

We moved her into a much bigger cage built for a queen, uumm, err, a delighted Twitcher-fiddles squirrel. Not one centimeter went unexplored.  (Squirrels beat cats hands down in the curiosity department!) She loves the heating lamp above the hammock in the top of her cage. She keeps scaring us, though! We go in there to check on her, and she gets all comfortable under that lamp, laying on her side with her eyes open, not moving, looking like she's dead, but the second we reach our hand in there, she snuggles all under her baby blanket. Little stinker!

My son and one of his friends went out climbing trees to pick perfect branches to add to her new habitat...so she would still know how to be a squirrel How sadly disappointed she would be once she got back out into the wild and discovered that you can't see through hollow tree branches like she could her nifty tubes that ran the entire length of her cage! When he brought them home to show her, she was very impressed with his choices. She showed him by gnawing off the end of one of his carefully picked delights.

These two were an inseparable pair the entire time Twitch was with us. She thrived, grew, and constantly entertained us with her high speed antics. Then, one morning, she just looked....depressed. My son was worried! He cared about her just like a mother would if her child was sick. He pulled her out of her cage, cuddled her, and fed her a syringe of formula. (She had been off the formula for a quite a while now, and doing real well on her "real food", but when any animal is sick, it's best to go back to the basics.) I moved her into the smaller cage we used when he first found her, put the heating pad under the cage, and we set up her little incubation cage again. He was up and down all night checking on her, and trying to get her to eat. I tried to get her to eat again before I went to school. She just wasn't taking in what she should have. By the time everyone got home from school, she wasn't looking very well at all. I live in a state where you can't keep a squirrel, so taking her to the vet wasn't a option. Instead, I called a good friend, a Florida vet doc, and a lady who lives in a state where you can have squirrels. My friend gave me another number to call, which I did, and they said to keep trying to get her vitamins in her, the formula, and make sure she got plenty of fluids because if she gets dehydrated, she'd go down hill even faster. Then the lady who has squirrels called me. She said we were doing everything we could and it sounded like she had a home where she was really cared about and loved. I got off the phone, and tried to feed her again. She nuzzled the syringe once, and then passed away in my hands.

I had to be the tough one here because my kids were taking it so rough. I found a box, and buried her out in the back yard, next to my daughter's full sized doll house. My son lay on the couch, in fetal position, bawling, the whole time I took care of things for him.

The doc called me back just as I was finishing up. He said that squirrels are such fragile little things, it could have been anything that made her take a turn for the worse, and he was sorry he didn't get a hold of me sooner.

To this day, Twitch, your boy still misses you...for days he did not speak, and holed up in his bedroom. You really were like his first child, and he took losing you very, very hard.