Martha + Squirrel + Theo + Max post

Hope you don’t mind if I post something about animals and not pop culture on this post anyway. Sometimes it’s nice to have something different. Martha is my dog, the squirrel…I never caught his or her name, and Theo is a Prairie Dog.

I always liked squirrels since my dad told me he had one as a pet. He had found an injured one and nursed it back to health. He said he let it go when it was well but it kept coming back and would jump on his shoulders. He had it for years…it lived outside in the wild but loved my dad.

Well with that in mind…I was at home and I let Martha out on our screened-in back porch. It’s something between dogs and squirrels that doesn’t mix…oil and water or whatever you want to use. I looked around and Martha was going beserk…barking and looking up high on the screen. She was jumping up on it and I was afraid she would rip it so I stopped her…she then walked around and came back and done it again. A poor squirrel was frozen high on the screen.

I took Martha back in for around 30 minutes. We went back out and that squirrel was still in the same place frozen and looking at me. Of course, the thing was scared to death so I had an idea. I took a flimsy plastic stool and turned it upside down and lifted it up to the squirrel. I’ve never had a wild animal look into my eyes like it was deciding whether to trust me or not but…it did. It walked on the stool and looked down at me like…don’t give me to that giant ass dog, please! Our porch is not high so I gently tipped it a little while holding Martha back …and the squirrel took off.

Around an hour later Martha and I went out again….we went underneath our back porch to check on something…yep…that squirrel never left! He or she jumped up and Martha was on the chase…again I held Martha back and looked at the squirrel and him at me again…with a loud “GO GO GO” (me saying that not the squirrel…I think) it took off and hopefully will not come back…at least if Martha is outside. With me, it can come back if it wants to…but don’t chew the wires in our cars like one of its relatives did a few years ago. Of all times I didn’t have my phone with me.

Martha has a piece of pizza in her mouth in the car.

I’ve told people before that I want a prairie dog one day…a lady who works at my work has one and she brings it every Tuesday and Thursday just for me. I keep it in my office and take it out every now and then…call it practice…although I’m not sure Martha + Prairie Dog will mix. Theo doesn’t stay still long enough for me to get a good picture.

Theo is only around 10 weeks old. The last prairie dog this lady had bit me and they bite hard! This one doesn’t bite at all…it’s very sociable. The other one was not socialized.

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

42 thoughts on “Martha + Squirrel + Theo + Max post”

  1. Good job on rescuing the squirrel! Dogs sure don’t like ’em, seems no matter what breed.
    Neat that the lady brings the little prairie dog in to work. I hope you get a good pic of it eventually. What does it do all day long in the office when she is working? They’re great little animals but I’ve never been sure how well they’d adapt to being pets, with their social nature & seeming need to burrow and all. Will be interesting to hear, if you do ‘adopt’ one or two.

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    1. They live longer in captivity than they do in the wild…by years. She has something setup at home for him and he sleeps mostly through the day…he loves the interaction of humans and she is getting another prairie dog.
      I’ll let him out and he runs up and down me lol…then he will start sleeping and I put him in his cage.

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      1. Cool! I always thought it would be amazing to see one of those old colonies, few of which exist these days, where there were supposedly hundreds of thousands of them in ‘towns’ that stretched over a mile.
        Randy mentioned white squirrels near him, a cool unusual thing about the Toronto area is that most of the squirrels are black! Which really freaks out visitors apparently. They’re the same species of Gray squirrel but for some reason the melanistic ones are very very common in the metro area. There’s probably lots of photos of them online .

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      2. I’ve never seen a white or black squirrel…that is really cool. Well I’m not sure if I’ve seen one…usually they are up on a tree limb and far away.
        I’ve read where Prairie Dogs go from Texas to Canada…they are intelligent and sneaky.

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      3. I think they used to be like Buffalo… abundant and covering most of the interior of the country, but hunters and ranchers plus the destruction of the old grasslands for other uses has made them pretty scarce now I believe. Rather sad. Isn’t there an endangered ferret in the Dakotas that only lives in their colonies and eats nothing else?

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      4. I’m not sure about the ferret… I’ve been hoping they would migrate to TN…the Armadillas have….

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      6. Thanks Dave! That is really cool. Never have I’ve seen a squirrel like that.

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  2. This is such a great story! Yeah, Daisy is forever chasing squirrels. Sometimes she sees them through the window and scratches the door like she has to go out, but all she wants to do is get the squirrel!

    Sounds like you got a bit of the “squirrel whisperer” from your dad!!

    Martha is beautiful pup

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    1. Dogs ARE great… but I sure wish they would make peace with squirrels lol…but that won’t happen. That is why I’ll probably never have a prairie dog…Martha would go crazy.

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  3. That’s quite the squirrel tale! I’ve never heard of prairie dogs as pets before! Squirrels around these parts are ubiquitous and just a few miles away there’s a colony of white ones that have been there for over 100 years. Far as I know they are classified as wild animals here and illegal and generally not kept as pets. That said you can hand feed them a peanut!

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    1. Wow…white ones…that is really cool! Yea we have squirrels all around us. Prairie dogs are in pet stores in Texas and other states…some have them here…
      As I was telling Dave…they love human interaction and live longer in captivity but they demand a lot of attention.

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  4. West Texas is lousy with the little critters, their coterie’s are everywhere. I had a sort of pet squirrel about 7 years ago. She let me hand feed her peanuts and eventually climbed into my lap. My little dog Winnie went berserk when she was around, even small dogs go for them. There is a pair of Prairie Dogs on You tube, Poppy the PD is fun to watch.

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    1. I have watched Poppy and the one I ususally watched was “Big Ounce” from a guy in Waco Texas that runs a rehab for animals.
      I’m surprised they haven’t migrated here like the Armadillos did.

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  5. Awesome and great pic of Martha with a piece of pizza. lol… we have a squirrel here that runs periodically along the top of our fence and drives our lab Izzy nuts! lol
    I tell Sue if that squirrel slips and falls watch out haha….

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    1. Yep…that is just what I was thinking…if he slips…that will be his last slip…I’ve seen Martha trying to climb a tree to get them…

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  9. We have a squirrel that comes on our porch to eat its nuts. I think he hangs out there to torment my cats who want to break through the window and get it. I won’t let that happen. Our dog, loved to chase squirrels and birds and anything else that got in to the yard. And he would catch them every now and again…not a good thing after $1000 worth of doctors bills later.

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    1. Yea I could see that! I’ve seen Martha trying to climb a tree after them. It must be a built in instinct… dogs have no patience for them. That is why I probably will never get a prairie dog…they are basically the squirrel’s cousin…and looks just like them minus the tail…Martha would go nuts.

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      2. I do like doing these once in a while…I really do. I’m babysitting the prairie dog now while at work.

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  12. It seems like a cat/dog thing, natural born enemies or predator/prey. Or Roadrunner v Wile. E. Coyote. So If Martha comes back from a barking mad critter chase with a package in her mouth marked ‘Acme Supply Co’ look out!

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  14. Max, you’ve been having some adventures with wildlife! The poor squirrel found a friend in you. You’re a braver person than me. Not sure you ever told me your dad saved a squirrel’s life and the squirrel remembered it forever. I remember reading an article awhile back where people used to have pet squirrels and dress them up in clothes in Victorian times. 

    I remember you talking about Chandler and his prairie dogs and that you wanted one. Great idea to “practice” handling them via your co-worker bringing hers in. Sounds like if you get them socialized they are fine with humans.

    You also reminded me of something that happened when I went to get my oil changed recently. Will post on it soon.

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    1. I just never had a wild animal look at me like that…I could see it…”welll I gotta trust you today or else” and he did.
      Prairie dogs are really cool…they have the biggest vocabulary of any animal…they tell each other the color and size of an intruder coming…they are cool.

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      4. I know…was he/she getting it for it’s nest? I wonder if it was a squirrel. Did they find the mouse?

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      5. They didn’t mention finding any animal in there. I could see one of these tiny red pine squirrels doing it. They live in the pine tree by the carport but maybe it got cold up there this winter?

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