Rescue!

[stonyloam]

After reading the thread where hag saved the baby snakes when their mother was injured, I thought that it would be fun to start a “rescue” thread. I am sure that almost everyone has a little story about a rescue of some kind.
One of my best involves a “sweet” little mouse that I rescued a few years back. This story also helps explain why my wife thinks I am nuts. It was fall and I had just finished harvesting honey from my bees, and I had the empty supers (hive bodies) stacked in the garage for a few days. I was moving them outside to let the bees clean the remaining honey out of them, and when I lifted the bottom one there was a puddle of honey on the floor, and stuck in the middle (flat on his side) was a white footed mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). The floor was cold, about 50f (10C) and the mouse was as cold as the floor and appeared dead. I picked it up by the tail and took it outside and was about to toss it into the weeds, when it gave out the tiniest little squeak. I thought well if this guy is still alive (it was a guy), I should try to save him. Now, you have to understand that at this time of the year I usually fill the garage with rat poison packets specifically to eliminate these little invaders, but now that had become completely irrelevant, so the rescue proceeded. The first thing I had to do was get the honey off of him, so I took him up to my bathroom and cleaned him by running warm water over him. The warm water began to revive him, but he still looked like a drowned rat (more or less), so I was using the hair dryer to dry him off , when my wife walked in and asked what I was doing, so I patiently explained to her why I was blow-drying a mouse. She never said a word, just shook her head and walked out. He was getting pretty frisky by then, so I put him into a five gallon pail with some paper towels for the night. By morning he was zooming around like nothing had ever happened, so I took him out and let him go, where I assume he lived a long and happy mouse life. Pretty amazing that he could recover from being that cold, after being stuck to the floor for what could have been days.

[adamanteus]

Excellent story Terry, it made me laugh! I'll have a think and try to remember a tale of my own. This could prove to be another popular thread by Stonyloam!

[CrazyHedgehog]

I have two cats, Spanner and Spoon..

Spanner will bring you the leg of a rabbit, or the tail of a mouse just as proof of his tropheys! his sister Spoon on the other hand catches lots of mice, and brings them in for me completely unharmed...

I saw a mouse once right by my foot, (this is at 2am in the morning in my computer room!) happily sat washing itself! On my lap sat Spoon the cat......so I gently lowered the cat...the mouse froze...the cat touched it with her nose...the mouse stayed frozen...the cat sniffed...looked at me as if to say "I know...I gave it to you!" then walked away....the mouse stayed for a split second...caught my eye and whoosh was gone under my computer desk!

After half an hour of pulling my office apart, the mouse was caught and taken to the next field before Spanner saw it!..I figured it had had enough shocks for one night...

Terry, I have visions of the moment your wife caught you blow drying a mouse and yes I keep giggling!

[adamanteus]

Hedgehog...Do you know it's estimated that domestic cats kill 50 million songbirds per year in the UK, in addition to all the other small mammals they destroy? Have you considered fitting bells to their collars?

[jimijaw]

My rescues are nothing dramatic but all in all It made me feel good. 1st one a Western Hognose snake that I noticed in the local mom and pop pet store. When they first got it they were showing me how docile it was and very healthy, well almost a year later I spotted it in a 10 gallon aquarium way up on the top shelf in the back of the store and I asked the owner if I could hold it again and he said there was no way anyone was going to hold it because it went wild and would strike at anyone that even get close to the tank. I could see that the tank hadnt been cleaned in ages as the substrate was molded and feces was every where plus old sheds all over. I felt sorry for it as I remember how sweet it was to hold it a very gentle docile snake and now its striking at anything that moved near the tank so I felt sorry for it and paid the outrageous price and took it home. After just 2 weeks of being home he is back to the loveable very handleable snake he was. All you have to do is take the top off his tank which is now a 30 gallon and he will crawl right into your hands. He loves to be held and will even let you touch him anywhere around the head and nose. I say he but I dont know what sex it is and dont really care as he is a pet a super pet at that.
Number 2 Same pet shop different snake. Up where I found the first snake was a Jungle Carpet Python 4 ft long cramed into a 10 gallon aquarium and it looked so bad no heat source and no humidity and it looked like it had several attempted sheds stuck to it with pieces sticking up all over and it definately had a nasty disposition. Well I again felt sorry for it and overpaid to get it. I immediately got it home and put it in a 40 gallon long and put in a hygrometer and went to keeping the humidity between 60 and 70% and keeping the temps where they should be and feed on a regular basis. Its been a month now and it has had a 90% shed all except on top of its head. When I first got it home I had to wear leather gloves and a heavy coat with thick sleeves cause he would bite like crazy. Well now I can get it out of the tank with the snake hook and then hold it bare handed and no bites at least not yet. He will settle down being held after just a few minutes and is then curious. so far so good but the best part Is the pet shop is closing down due to poor business sales. I feel good and I have some great pets out of it all. Sorry about the long post

[stonyloam]

That reminds me of how I got my dog Chole. Our dog Kirby had just died and my wife and I had decided to wait 3 or 4 months before getting another dog. So 5 days later I was scouring the paper for a Springer spaniel pup. I phoned a breeder, who said he had 3 males (we were looking for a girl), but he had an “accidental” Springer/German shorthair pup that was 5 weeks old. We went down just to take a look, and on the way made a hard and fast rule that the pup would have to be exactly what we were looking for, a small healthy Springer, totally objective, no feeling sorry. When we got there we could see that the breeder was a lot like the pet store owner, not very good. Well we took a look. She was exactly what we were NOT looking for! Pitiful little brown thing living outside eating crappy adult dog food. Trying to think of some way to get out of it I asked “how old is she”? “Seven weeks, ready to go” (hmmm aged two weeks in 45 minutes). Rules, what rules? Of course we took her home. Took her to the vet, umbilical hernia (easily fixed). She weighed 3 pounds, (two pounds of dog and 1 pound of worms). It all turned out well and she is a great dog (63 pounds). My wife says that when she dies she is going to bury me with her, whether I am dead or not. She is joking…. I think. Rescue? She probably would not have lived very long there. So Jimijaw there are lots of crappy pet store owners out here luckily there are lots of folks like you too. Yeh my posts are getting kinda long too.

[adamanteus]

Terry, I love that story. The world is a better place because it is peopled by the likes of you and Jimijaw. Hats off to both of you.

PS Long posts area good thing, in my view, something to get your teeth into!

[jimijaw]

Beautiful Dog and such a great point!!!! Congrats on a job well done Jimi

[jimijaw]

Terry, I love that story. The world is a better place because it is peopled by the likes of you and Jimijaw. Hats off to both of you.

Thanks again James it is appreciated! Jimi

[Josh]

that was pretty funny