My wife called as I was leaving work to tell me to hurry home as one of the dogs just brought in a dead animal. When I walked in to the house, she told me where to find it and then commented that the dead animal had just flipped over. Upon closer inspection, it isn’t a ‘dead animal,’ but rather a VERY scared baby squirel. My question is, assuming neither bit the other (as far as I can tell that’s the case), do I need to worry about anything? Rabies? Anything at all? Until I find out, I’ve got the squirell quarantined outside. So, anything I need to worry about, or should I just get everyone bathed and clean up run the carpet cleaner over the area where the squirel was dropped?
I am not much help here, but perhaps your dog is a member of the Squirrel Defamation League .
But on a serious note, it is possible, but not that uncommon.
From wildlife management :
But I am sure someone with true knowledge will come along soon.
[QUOTE=FormerMarineGuy]
I am not much help here, but perhaps your dog is a member of the Squirrel Defamation League .
Maybe, but she didn’t kill it. She likes to ‘maim’ things. If there’s a fly or a moth in the house, she’ll spend hours jumping at it. When she does finally catch it, she’ll torment it for a few minutes, once it’s unable to fly, she moves on to something else, apperently she moved on to ‘big game’ this time.
Well I called the vet and they told me that the dog is up to date on rabies shots, so that’s not a concern. She wasn’t really concerened about it at all. The only thing that she mentioned is Frontline, but she wasn’t even all that concerned about that.
BTW I let the squirel go and it sat on the ground shaking and crying for a few minutes until Mom came down and carried it back up. I’m wondering if maybe it fell out of the tree. The nest seems to be about 15 feet up. Even so, being carried into a house by a dog and then brought back outside in garbage can, I’m sure it was quite scared.
When they say that things like rats and squirrels get rabies rarely, they mean that they virtually never get it. The argument lies with the question of whether you could keep one in a lab and inject it with enough rabies to make it catch it in theory. Even if they somehow managed to catch it the virus, they wouldn’t be good at transmitting it to people or other animals making the risk minuscule.
I’m just imagining the story the squirrel will tell his grandkids someday.
poor little kit. mum probably didn’t believe his “a dog nearly ate me” excuse for being late.
i’m glad every being had a somewhat happy ending.
Rabies shots aren’t even recommended with squirrels (CDC). The number of positive squirrel-rabies transmissions numbers in the low dozens over the last several decades.
My dad got scratched by a squirrel yesterday and apparently treated it with bactine. I’ll let you know if he starts biting people.
Keep an eye out for fleas. The dog probably didn’t get fleas from a baby squirrel but you never know. My dog killed a rabbit once in the middle of the winter and got fleas from it (since in Ohio you don’t do flea protection in the winter).
Sorry, I have nothing to add. I’m just checking whether I can post, as I cannot start a new thread.
I figure it fell out of the tree and was stunned when the dog found it. You hadn’t noticed any young squirrels in the yard before then had you?
I was surprised the mother retreived the young one though, that’s cool.
I was also surprised the dog DIDN’T kill the squirrel.
My rat terrier would’ve had him for lunch.
Isn’t it a little late in the season for squirrel babies? I thought squirrels usually had their kits in the spring.
Probably
but not necessarily, squirrels don’t normally but can reproduce more than once a year. Without knowing more about the squirrel though it’d be hard to answer that. How old/big was the “baby”. What species? Where?