I’m not sure how I feel about this. (the hygiene part, I mean)
Cute little girl and her dead squirrel links to Youtube vid.
Anyone care to comment?
Could a moderator please fix my title typo? Thanks!
We only have an 18 month old so we haven’t faced this yet, but we think we’d do pretty much what these guys did. (I even made some of the same sounds as the Dad watching it!)Slowly talking her around into the need to decide on a final resting place, and then taking her off to get cleaned up.
Still, I think I’d be pleased at how relaxed she is around death; I don’t think I’m nearly as comfortable and would like to be. It could be because she’s too young to realise the finality of it, but in general I’d like Baby From Mars to be unsquicked out rather than the contrary.
I think it’s a great learning experience regarding death, but I can’t seem to get past the inherent dangers (i.e. disease) of handling a dead squirrel. Thinking through the possible causes of death for a squirrel, I come up with the following: predator, trauma (roadkill), old age, disease, congenital heart defect. There are no signs of trauma in this case, so that rules out the first two. The next question is how many squirrels actually live long enough to die of old age? Probably not many. So we’re left with disease and the long-shot of some congenital defect. The odds are too high that it’s the former, so I ultimately couldn’t allow a child to handle the animal. Handling a possibly disease ridden carcass needs to be done with a certain level of diligence regarding hygiene, something I’m not going to trust a child to do.
Now if the animal was in good health and I witnessed its death (ruling out disease), then I might be more open to the type of handling seen in the video. But a random dead squirrel with no signs of trauma? Not a chance.
(Note that I watched the video without sound; if they commented on a known cause of death, disregard my opinion.)
On preview, it appears that the video was removed from youtube.
When the dog comes out, the father says something about the killer and the killee. I assume that means the dog killed it, but didn’t rip the carcass apart.
:smack: Youtube needs to offer transcripts.
Well, in that case go ahead and play with the dead squirrel. Just don’t put your fingers (or the squirrel) in your mouth.
No, animals of this size are often killed when seized by the neck or head, without there being trauma that would be visible except on closer inspection. My first guess, even before the appearance of the dog, was that this squirrel was killed by somebody’s dog. As limp as it is, and with no bloating or really rank odors, it would seem to be very fresh.
It’s probably equivalent to handling a hunting kill, and somewhat safer than handling store-bought meat.
My son has been “petting” dead things since he was about 18 months old. He’s two and a half now, so I’m not sure how it’s going to touch his development, but I’m not in the least concerned.
His dad is a hunter. Turkey, deer, quail, water fowl. Whenever Daddy takes something, Little Bit gets acquainted. Under close observation, with much washing afterwards, of course.
He has also watched as the animals were cleaned, and heard the guns go off hundreds of times. No fear of a gunshot has my boy.
I’m sure he’ll get even more exposure now that I’m not going to be around to monitor.
Huh, now it’s removed.
Were comments enabled on that? Were the folks under fire?
Win.
What happened now that it’s gone?
I can’t see the video, but I take it from comments here than a small child found a squirrel killed by the family dog and she’s prodding the body until Dad explains that it’s dead and they should bury it?
Sounds like a parenting win to me. I might have even gone a step further, depending on the age of the child, and suggest we dissect it together before burial. This is a wonderful teaching moment.
Somewhat related, my 6 year old asked me the other day why I bought our family fish. I thought about it for a minute, and decided to go for the *whole *truth: “When you were 3, I knew that our cats wouldn’t live forever, and you would be very sad and confused when they died. I got you the fish because you don’t love a fish like you love a cat, and I thought when it died you could learn that pets die without it hurting so much. Of course, Tara kitty died about a year later, and Darwin is still swimming, so that didn’t work out so well. But that’s why I got the fish.”
She thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Well, thanks for trying! You’re a good mom. I miss Tara, but…” and she looked into the fish’s bowl, “Darwin, thanks. I hope you keep swimming for a while.” 
Just to be a bit more specific about the video, it could be described less as prodding and more like carrying a dead squirrel like a baby doll and wearing it like a mink scarf.
Basically a curious 3ish-year-old girl doing what 3ish-year-olds do… except with a dead squirrel instead of a dolly or blanket. It’s cute, but I could see it freaking some parents out, hence the OP asking for opinions.
nm
Of course they were! On other sites if not on the Youtube page itself.
You can see the vid here now, along with a taste of teh interwebs reaction.
Changed “Failor” to “Failure” in title.
OMG, that’s hilarious! And cute! And she clearly knew the squirrel was dead, and why. It was a fresh kill, for sure, being limp but not rotten. Dad didn’t quite make this into a Teaching Moment, but whatevs. I’d check her for fleas, but since she was heading towards the bath, I’m really not too concerned for her welfare.
The fact that some crazy internet folks (CIFs) think that Child Protective Services should be called makes me laugh even more. I’m sure the CIFs great-grandfathers were out hunting squirrels with their slingshots, throwing them at one another and even gasp bringing them home for the stewpot!
People need to get a grip.
Okay, that’s pretty creepy.
The link in Post 15 works, if you want to see it. It’s really pretty cute, but I admit, I’m weird.
Yeah, definitely creepy. Even if it was just killed by a dog, they have no idea where the squirrel’s been or what it could be carrying. Really gross.