I Love What I Do

I grew up around animals. My parents were both known in our neighborhood to take in every lost, stray, underfed, and sick animal. As a child I had "pets" that included a talking crow (yes, really), squirrels, raccoons, skunks, turtles, and English sparrow named "Hawk" (he had delusions of grandeur), and a ton of wild bunnies. So it is not a very hard thing to imagine that I do what I do for a living.

I warned my fiancee right from the start that there is often a myriad of critters that I am rehabbing at any given time. As he looked through my photo albums of my son, who at the ripe old age of 2 1/2 is bottle feeding a squirrel, I could only imagine what he was thinking.

Sure enough during dinner the other night the town Animal Control Officer called me. The hopsital I work for was closed and he was not sure what to do with his latest find. "It's a fawn. We picked it up on Clintan Avenue. A couple was walking it like a dog." Good Lord!!! How stupid can people be?!?!? Anyway, 20 minutes later he shows up in his van with the fawn secured in a carrier. Dehydrated and two runny eyes, but gernerally ok. This is the second fawn my son has seen and helped me take care of. The first was when he was 9 months old!

RG, my son and I took the fawn to my office where he was fed a mixture of goat's milk and rice cereal. He spent the night and then was discharged to a wildlife rehabber hwho will eventually release him to the wild.

Awesome.