Welcome To Doug's Blog!

I decided to make squirrel Doug a blog to help chronical his journey. He has generated a lot of interest so I'd like to have one place to update that way I'm sure not to forget something in all of my cross posting.

Doug's Story

Doug came to us the afternoon of August 08, 2009. I made an unexpected trip to Toys R Us to meet another AP mama for a Melissa & Doug responsibility chart she no longer wanted/needed. Had I not made this trip I may not have found Doug... which is why I named him after the brand.

When I arrived back home I saw our adopted stray cat Ninja playing with something. I thought "Oh great, she killed something else." I unloaded R and everything else, and as I approch Ninj I bend down to get a look at this critter she brought us. Then I saw it's sides moving. "Sh*t, it's still alive." I hurried inside, put R in her highchair, dropped everything else, got a rag from the bunny room and went to fetch this critter. I had no idea what it was yet, no idea what to do with it, just that I had to take care of it and make every attempt I could to ensure his survival. I had nothing on hand to feed it, much less did I know what I was supposed to feed it not knowing what it was. So the only thing I had was breastmilk. I expressed a small amount and began feeding it to him.

Day 1 with Doug was pretty much a wait and see game.
Day 2 Doug squeezed out a little bit of poopie.
Day 3 he began to pee and poop regularly.
Day 4 he began eating more than .5cc. I finally managed to weigh him on day 4 at which time he weighed 27.6 grams.
Day 5 (today) Doug eats anywhere from .3cc- 1cc each meal. he eats roughly every 2 hours during the day. I feed him right before I go to bed and as soon as I can manage to get up.

Some pictures since we've had him:

Day 1 (080809)


Day 2 (080909)


Day 3 (081009)


Day 5 (081209)



...and some video of Doug

Day 2

(yes that's my daughter screaming in the background)



Day 4




So far Doug has been doing great. I have no plans on changing his food, quite honestly I can't afford to buy him artificial milk, nor would I want to. Besides, if my milk is good enough to grow a human baby, it's good enough to grow a baby squirrel.
(For those who don't know, of may have stumbled across my blog, I am dairy/soy/egg free right now because my daughter has food allergies. I mention this because in my research I have read that rodents cannot tolerate these things.)

That's all for Doug's intro. I do hope you'll follow us on his journey. I most hope that it's long and uneventful up until his eventual release.