Do you have wild life "pets"?

**shoiji** · 10-19-2010, 11:54 AM

Well, last year I noticed a mother squirrel and her baby on my balcony. The baby squirrel would hop around the balcony and was scarred to climb down. Anyway, I would see this baby squirrel on my balcony giving myself and the cats a fun time watching. Now I think it is full grown. Unfortunately most squirrels around here look alike so I am only guessing it is the baby squirrel. So I tossed out some trail mix yesterday. This morning the squirrel was literally climbing my screen door to the balcony. Causing a great deal of surprise to myself and the cats. So tossed out more trail mix.

Now I realize I probably have a "pet" squirrel. Although I will not be feeding it on a regular basis. Don't wont the animal getting to friendly. Anyone else have wild life visiting them that seem to be almost pets?

I also caught this squirrel eating a bunch of rose leaves from my miniature rose plant on the balcony. Was not happy to see that. lol

**frugalwarrior2** · 10-19-2010, 12:00 PM

No-God help the creature that comes in our yard w/ the 3 dogs and now 3 cats that go out. The squirrels tend to run high along the wood fences and tease. I did knick name one lucky. He has only 1/2 a tail. Just as sassy though.
My DMom feeds them at her house. We finally convinced her NOT to do it near the top of the yard.

**nodmicks** · 10-19-2010, 12:19 PM

yep and they are smart enough to only go in the front yard where the dogs can't get them or out in the fields. We have a fox and a other assorted critters. My fav is the little deer. I live in the sticks but it took 13 years to have a deer in my yard. Bear , yes, fox, yes, squirrel , yes, coons, yes, woodchuck, yes, cranes ducks and geese galore and finally this year a deer

**Neeley** · 10-19-2010, 12:32 PM

We live smack dab in the middle of a huge city and about the only thing we see are a few rabbits. There are one or two that live under our deck. I put out all of our scrap fruit and veggies for them.

I also feed a couple of feral cats. One of which now walks towards me hissing when I put his food out. He will take pieces of ham and cheese from my hand while hissing. It is really cute.

Years before I met her, my step-mom had a pet raccoon that came in the house, would sit on the couch, etc...She said it was a wild one that just became a member of the family after a while. She has also taken in baby squirrels over the years. One of them would nest on your shoulder and eat from you hands.

**jas** · 10-19-2010, 01:47 PM

We used to have a bunch of squirrles I would feed out front. I stopped doing it and they have moved on. Every now and again I will throw some bread or crackers out there. I do have a jar of peanuts that I could put out since they are almost not good enough for us to eat.

We have some kind of animal that roams the back fence at night mocking out dog. We certainly don't feed it or encourage it.

When we did feed the squirrles they would a few times get on the screens of the windows.

**Darlene** · 10-19-2010, 01:55 PM

Only outdoor "pets" I purposely feed are the birds. I don't like to encourage others.

**Labontet** · 10-19-2010, 03:46 PM

When my oldest dd, now 36 yrs old, was in the 3rd grade, she was supposed to bring in a pet for show and tell. Well we did not have any dogs, cats, hamsters, or anything at the time. So, the night before she was to take her pet, we looked outside and found a toad. Yes a toad. We put in in a jar with holes in the lid and she took it to school. (I just know that the whole school must have had a good laugh on that one, she was such a GIRL) Anyway she came home that afternoon and had won a ribbon for "The Best Pond Pet". After we congratulated her for the ribbon, we turned the toad back out to the flower bed. Isn't that just so sad?

**Contrary Housewife** · 10-19-2010, 04:38 PM

This is "Buddy", our resident opossum:

I found him living in a disused covered cat box this spring. He's been evicted from there but still comes around to eat my tomatoes and get in the compost pile.

**Nishu** · 10-19-2010, 04:47 PM

When we were little my grandparents had a pet deer. We have pictures of him in their house, standing next to my grandpa who was sitting in his recliner. They've had a fox, too. I think a raccoon.

I had a lovely little finch escape out my back window so he became a wildlife pet.

**Palooka** · 10-19-2010, 04:54 PM

^^Omg, so cute!

I have 3 very fat raccoons that hang out on my deck. They even get along with my cats and they don't mind if I walk out on the deck at night.

We had a squirrel once that had babies on the top of our deck. She was a b*tch to say the least. All she did was growl at me even when I tried to be nice to her.

**zakity** · 10-19-2010, 05:04 PM

We had a ground squirrel named "Molly" when the boys were really tiny. We used to feed her on the porch on a board in front of the sliding glass doors so the boys could watch her.

We also fed the birds when the boys were little. They thought it was really cool to tear up the bread heels and scatter them across the yard and then stand at the sliding glass doors and watch the birds.

We have pacific tree frogs and garter snakes on the property. We don't really consider them pets, but we are always glad when we find one. The frogs are usually tiny and adorable. They would catch them and hold them for a few minutes and then they had to return them to where they found them. If we find a snake, the guys used to put it in a bucket and look at it for a few minutes (at most a half hour) and then they had to return it to it's home.

**zakity** · 10-19-2010, 05:10 PM

I forgot about our skunk!! He (guessing here, could be a girl) lives underneath our porch. He eats the dropped cat food, I am sure he raids our compost pile, and he drinks the water we have outside for the cats. I caught him bumping noses with one of our cats. It's great having him around. We used to have skunk smell a few times a week. With our friend under our porch, we have only had skunk smell like three times the whole summer.

**valerian** · 10-19-2010, 05:45 PM

We have domestic pets only...don't want to mess with wild ones...too dangerous and unpredictable.

**mndtrp** · 10-19-2010, 06:26 PM

We have a lot of squirrels in the neighborhood. While we don't feed them, I'll take the empty peanut butter jar, tie it to a string, and then tie the string to the patio furniture. The squirrels spend the next few days trying to get the last little bit of peanut butter, and our indoor cat has something to pretend to stalk.

**Libby** · 10-19-2010, 06:55 PM

I have the neighbours cat

It comes running over whenever it hears me pull into the driveway or open my screen door. It just wants to say 'hello' or get a bit of lovin'. I've left margarine tubs of water for it outside during the summer...bought it a bag of Whiska's Cat Treats from the Dollarama. My other neighbour used to put food out for it as well until one day I pulled into the driveway and found a party going on - of racoons the 1/2 the size of my garbage can!

Took pics to show her and that put an end to that!!!

I'm gonna stick to water and cat treats

I think this is an outdoors cat.