More Skunk Lore

Obsessing about a badly injured skunk has been sort of a steam escape valve for me, and Lord knows we all need those. I mean, it's business as usual for me to be hyperfocused on and fussing over some badly compromised wild thing, but this hurt skunk has really stretched the limits of my ingenuity and forced me to be patient and wait for slow improvement. I like to fix things. I like to fix people and animals, if I can. I use nature, positivity, time and good food to do my witchery, sometimes a little medicine. But this skunk cannot be fixed neatly or quickly. That's not to say he can't be fixed at all.

 SugarBean showed up March 7 and had been more and more dependent on my food subsidy as the weeks went on. There were a few days near the end of March when it actually hurt to watch him crippling around the yard. One beautiful warm day he sort of lay around on the grass in broad daylight, and when he wanted to get up he had to use his head to roll over on his side and kind of pry himself up. That was really hard to watch. That was when I got kind of frantic about him and started trying to dream up ways to catch him in a carrier and transport him to the Ohio Wildlife Center in Columbus. I was able to get him in a cat carrier, where he slept overnight in a rainshower, dry and protected. So OK. I could easily catch him... but for what? Once I found out that Ohio Wildlife Center likely would not try to operate on him, I had to fish or cut bait. I thought of calling a couple of people who might be willing to come shoot him for me, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. If he still showed interest in food; if there was even the whisper of a chance that this poor little wreck could turn out to be a viable skunk, I owed it to SugarBean to keep trying. He was certainly trying!

So I adopted the role of nurse/caregiver, and kept the nutritious food coming. I was pretty much winging it, trying to keep SugarBean well supplied with protein and calcium. So far, soft-boiled eggs, cottage cheese, chopped spinach, chopped pear, strawberries, fresh corn off the cob, mandarin orange,  sunflower hearts, sliced almonds, and cooked chicken have all been hits. Kitten chow and dog kibble are both appreciated. I'm not sure there's much you could offer a skunk that it would refuse. I've managed to feed that little skunk most every day for almost two months. I didn't mind. It was a privilege, and I have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with him.

Phoebe came around the corner of the house, looking for me, and found this scene. She'd been calling for me, but I didn't answer, for obvious reasons. I heard her breathe, "Oh my GOD" in a sort of "This would be going on whether I was here to witness it or not" voice. I quietly handed her my phone and she grabbed a couple of shots of her Crazy Skunk Lady mom, living dangerously as usual. 

I was a lot closer to him than I wanted to be. I had just set the dish down when the skunk ambled up, and I didn't have time to back off! At that point it seemed I'd do more harm by trying to waddle backward, and probably tip over like a brown marmorated stinkbug, lying there waving my legs, than just by staying in place until he was done eating. Good thing my knees still work pretty well. Ha ha! That was an epic squat. 

Taken with my iPhone. I was right on top of him!  And that's how Phoebe found us. I love the possessive little paws, placed right in the food. As if, once I'd given him the meal, I was going to rescind it? You never know...

Obviously, a telephoto lens is to be preferred for both parties' comfort and safety. 

Mmm, chicken.

Pignosin' his kibble. I just love the snowy Afro.

I took to setting his food and water just outside his little mailbox home so he wouldn't have to use that poor busted leg so much. 

He took to that mailbox like a duck to water, and he spent the better part of two weeks sleeping almost around the clock in its toasty soft confines, coming out only to eat and poop. I love to creep up, peek in there and see ebony fur. 

Each day, he'd emerge to poop. I cleaned up his little noodly piles with a shovel. But not while this gorgeous little moth, a Grapevine Epimenus, was doting on them! Now you know what skunk poop looks like. I'll confess I didn't, before this. But whoa. 

Come to find out, I've already used the tag "skunk scat" on this blog, so I'm gonna have to go see what I said about it!

Here is a video of SugarBean motivating toward his carrier on March 30, before the mailbox palace was in place. At this point I still thought it was a female, so pardon the narration. This was as well as I had seen him move since he first appeared, and hope sprang in my heart that he might eventually be OK after all. His locomotion is certainly not great, but it's a whole lot better than it was. I'm so amused at the thought that a wild skunk would willingly go into a cat carrier and spend time in there. Just one of the many lessons this little mustelid has to teach me.

           

 SugarBean has sure taught me a lot about skunks, about trust, about patience and love.  And about dog training! My hope is that, having come to know this one virtual skunk, some readers might not be so quick to freak out, call pest control,  or at the very least, run around shouting and waving their arms. It's just a small, calm, sweet, black and white animal, who happens to be packing a bomb. Your job is to stay cool so he doesn't have to deploy it.

Release the Kestrel!

A month went by, as months do when Christmas is coming and you're traveling with your kids in Spain (I'm not done with Spain! I just had to tell you about this bird!). A few days after admission on December 12,  the kestrel had X-rays and a thorough exam at the Ohio Wildlife Center hospital near Columbus. Coracoids were fine. However there was a left carpal issue--the hand part of his wing was hurt.

He received light oral inflammatory treatment, laser therapy to promote natural healing, and physical therapy. He was kept in the hospital for a few more days, then taken out to the pre-release facility with its big flight cages to test his wings. I got this precious information from my friend Connie Ray, a volunteer rehabilitator for Ohio Wildlife Center. I so appreciate a little glimpse into their workings, especially when one of my special birds is recuperating in their care.

I was hoping perhaps to pick the kestrel up when we got back from Spain on Dec. 30, but he wasn't quite ready. He was flying, though, and the veterinarian was hopeful. So was I. I just couldn't imagine this jewel anywhere but in the sky, hovering over the vast fields of Barlow.

photo by Lee Hermandorfer

Finally, I got the email from Ohio Wildlife Center that I'd been hoping for. The kestrel was ready for release!

I can't tell you how grateful I am that I don't have to get in the car and drive 2 1/2 hours to go pick these creatures up, or take them to care in Columbus. All I do is text Lee, and we coordinate. She budgets the time to go by OWC and get the bird; we meet up. But this time Lee would be in on the release, and I was so happy about that. It was only right.

I also have to tell you how amazing it is to have been able to release two raptors this winter. The percentage of raptors that meet up with barbed wire fences and cars, and come out of it releasable, is so vanishingly small. And it is so heartbreaking to field one after another, send them up, only to hear they've been euthanized for their injuries, too severe to be healed. It's very hard on the heart, especially when it's a big sweet old barred owl with those liquid eyes, or a beautiful Cooper's hawk, wild and crazy but oh so broken. I just don't feel that I can or should pronounce on these birds; I feel like I have to give them the benefit of a full veterinary exam. And yet most of the time I know what the answer will be. That's what makes it so hard.

But I had a good feeling about the barbed-wire redtail, which was richly borne out, and I had a good feeling about this little kestrel. His eyes seemed to say, "I've got this. I need time, but I'll be coming back to you."

And he did.

Also attending the release: the Yost family, with their Miracle Dog, Frank, who was lost this winter for a couple of months, but who was found again, much to their joy. 

Anastasia and her kids are the ones who caught the falcon when they realized he was hurt. 

These kids...the sweetest. 

They walked and scooted and strollered from home to attend the release!

The little falcon was scrabbling around in his carrier. He knew where he was. His head bobbed, his eyes bugged. He was home! Why wouldn't we let him out? Well, we eventually did. Being humans, we had to yak about it for awhile first. We don't make much sense to falcons.

It was an unnaturally warm, very blustery day, over 70 degrees, but it wasn't raining. The kestrel would just have to deal with the gusty wind, and the cold front roaring toward us. It was time for him to be free at last.

I was very nervous about capturing his release in slow motion, but I somehow managed to do it. He was out of there like greased lightning. A real-time video would have shown nothing but a blur. With this, we get to revel in his amazing colors one last time, and in motion!

please note--it's ohiowildlifecenter.org   --  I got it wrong in the video. Doesn't he fly so beautifully, so swiftly, so assuredly? Great work, Ohio Wildlife Center!

If that wasn't cool enough, the kestrel made a tremendous circle around Barlow town center, sat for awhile in the big sycamore on the fairgrounds, then came back to us! He fetched up in a tree and commenced to holler.

He was looking all around, hollering killykillykillykilly as if he were calling for his mate. 

See, now, that's such a parrot thing to do, to sit up on a high perch and yell like that. 

I wish I could say that a female flew right up in response, but that didn't happen while we were watching. He'll have to go look for her.

It was SO cool to see him fly so easily, so well, and to see him return from his perch in the sycamore, where he was little more than a speck to the naked eye. 

These aren't great shots, but he was so fast and the light was absolutely pitiful. 

See that row of round white windows along the rear margin of his wing? Great field mark for American kestrel. 

Barlow is full of fields and farms like these. That bird is in tall corn. 

Michael McCutcheon is a dentist whose office overlooks the field where our bird was found injured. He said he's been watching a kestrel there for a long time. He's also Lee's dentist and a birdwatcher, so we were delighted that he and his family could attend the release. He'll keep an eye out for the bird going forward. Curtis attended, but he stayed in the car for the release, because Frank got there first. He was kind of mad at me so I brought him out and took him for a nice hike in a hemlock ravine immediately afterward.

Curtis enjoyed meeting everyone. He is becoming expert at the impromptu meet and greet events that seem to follow us wherever we go. People recognize him, and then figure out who I must be. Ha ha!!

I enjoyed seeing this little band of people, united in joy at the kestrel's release.

That's Lee holding the carrier. She has incredibly sharp and practiced birder eyes and is pointing out where the kestrel is at the moment. 

Fare well, little death parrot. Thanks to everyone who made your recovery and release possible. Thanks to the kestrel who came zipping back to holler awhile, and let us know he was large, in charge and back home where he belonged!

Wildlife rehab isn't just for broken kestrels and orphaned opossums. It's for people, too.

 I think that we all need the occasional lift of a newly freed bird's wings.

Please donate here, to keep the Ohio Wildlife Center going strong. They helped more than 5,000 animals and birds last year! and I'd be utterly lost without them.

Kestrel Joy

Facebook...it's where so much happens. Everyone's got a cellphone, everyone has access to everyone else, and little waifs like this American kestrel can be the beneficiaries. 

My friend Anastasia and her kids saw this little kestrel standing by the roadside in Barlow, Ohio. 

When they stopped the car and got out, the kestrel ran and fluttered, but he (see the blue wings?) couldn't get altitude. Something was wrong, something was hurt. 

They had the sense and courage to pursue the bird and capture him, and they took him home in a box. I say this about courage because it is pretty rare. Most people are afraid to touch birds, especially ones with a lot of pointy bits. We have been so inculcated since early childhood by the dictum never to touch a bird that I think a lot of Americans get phobic about it. Not the Yost family!

When Anastasia got him home, the kestrel managed to get out of the box and crouched on their kitchen table for another photo. At this point I had a bunch of messages from Anastasia. I set about arranging for the bird's transport to the Ohio Wildlife Center in Columbus, and also telling her how best to contain and feed the little guy. 

Understandably, Anastasia was afraid of doing the wrong thing, so she and her husband and their kids all piled in the car and brought him to me that night of December 8, 2019. I was moved by their dedication to the best outcome for this bird. As soon as I laid eyes on him, I understood completely. I would have driven 45 minutes one way to save him, too. 

While I waited for him to arrive, I prepared a pet carrier, got out my supplies, and snipped a bit of raw lean pork chop (half my dinner) into little strips. It was what I had, fresh that evening, with no warning whatsoever, and it would have to do until I could get some proper food. 

First, to examine him, and see if I could figure out what was wrong. He took my breath away. He reminded me of a parrot--the intelligence in his eyes, the shape of his square head; the way he lay in my glove...and well he should. Falcons are taxonomically closer to parrots than they are to hawks! This news is a few years old, but if you don't travel in ornithological circles you may not have heard it.  It all makes sense--the way they hold their prey in their feet and bring it up to their beaks to eat; their playful nature; even their brilliant coloration makes sense if you think of a kestrel as a kind of death parrot.

I couldn't find any broken bones, which made me suspect a coracoid fracture deep in his chest. He was holding his left wing a little out and low, which was consistent with that diagnosis. Cage rest wouldn't hurt him. I had contacted my Angel, Lee Hermandorfer, who told me her next trip to Columbus, where she works as a Respiratory Therapist at Childrens Hospital, would be in three days.

Well, OK. We'd take it. Until then, he was mine to pamper. I tucked him into the carrier, his perch well-padded, and gave him a dish of pork strips. I put him in a quiet, lit part of the newly cleaned basement. Checking back about 15 minutes later, he had decimated the pork and drunk some water.

His crop was looking nice and bulgy. I was so glad this little gentleman was warm, dry, and stuffed with food. I hoped he was comfortable. I was already in love.

What a mess he was! He spent much of his day trying to figure out how to get out of the carrier. I didn't want him trying to fly with a possible fracture, so he had to stay in it. He quickly splashed all the water out of his dish and pooped absolutely everywhere. 

By the first afternoon, I had procured a bag of frozen snap trapped white-footed mice, generously offered by my friend Chad Goode. How considerate! I usually keep them in my freezer, but I'd fed them all to busted owls and hawks and was out. I drove into town to meet Chad and grab the goods. I've never been so happy to be gifted a bag of small dead animals. 

As a little aside, Chad's mom Mary delivered both my kids. Best labor and delivery nurse anybody could ever cling to. And man, I clung to her. We bonded something fierce.

Kestrels won't thrive on plain raw meat. They need organ meat, fur or feathers for roughage, and bones for calcium. Whole foods are the way to go for little predators like this one. Thank you, Chad.

\ It occurs to me that, without Facebook, nobody would have known 

a. I had a kestrel or b. I needed frozen mice.

And nobody would have known to contact me without it, either. 

This social media sword cuts on many edges. 

The kestrel heartily approved of the mice and swiftly tore them into bits.

I changed his towels, papers and water daily. 

His onyx eyes radiated intelligence and an almost eerie calm composure. No frantic fluttering for this one! I was transfixed by his beauty, but I didn't want to stress him by staring at him, so I left him alone until it was time to feed, water or clean his carrier.

Finally, the day arrived when he'd get his lift to the Ohio Wildlife Center. 

I opened his carrier, intending to transfer him to a roomy cardboard carrier for the trip (the same one the barbed wire redtail had arrived home in). 

To my surprise, he flew right out the carrier door and landed on the bed. Once again, he was calm and peaceful, and clearly glad to be out of that small confined space. 

He took my breath away, again. Somehow he'd managed to keep himself scrupulously clean. I suspect he bathed several times daily, as his water dish was perpetually emptied. 

Oh, the glory of it, to have a male kestrel on one's bed. I wished I could let him stay for awhile, but it was time to meet Lee. Could he be any more sleek or beautiful? I prayed hard that he'd be releasable. It just wouldn't be right for him to have to be caged for the rest of his life.

December 11 was his last morning with me. Now, it was up to the veterinarians and experienced rehabilitators at Ohio Wildlife Center.  I was headed for Spain soon, and I was glad he'd have  far better housing and expert veterinary care while I was away. I'm so thankful for OWC!!

The Owl Angels

I get the unlucky ones, the ones that fly in front of cars.

This young Cooper's hawk had a badly broken elbow. I met the people who found him at a pet shop in Marietta, which is the only place people in my town can find to take injured wildlife. That's a sad state of affairs, but it's what we're left with in depressed areas where nobody can afford to set up a wildlife rehabilitation center. In Ohio, the rehab centers are in the big cities, and that ain't us. We've got more woods and more wildlife than practically any other county in the state, and nobody for two hours around to take care of them when they get hurt.  I washed the wound and disinfected it. I didn't think there was much hope for him, jumpy nervous accipiters being the worst patients at best, but who am I to make that call? I have to send them on to someone who can. 

You see, all the birds that come to me in winter are raptors, and all of them are broken. I try not to let it break my heart, but it does. I can't fix them. On the rare occasion I can support and feed them until they're stronger, but when there are broken bones I must get them to expert veterinary care. Which is 2 1/2 hours away. 

The calls keep coming in, and I keep trying to help. Josh called, using his aunt's cellphone, to tell me he'd found a barred owl in a cemetery. It couldn't fly. So he picked it up and brought it home and started making calls to try to find someone who might help. I was probably the sixth person he tried, and I was not going to re-route him.

It seemed tame, docile, willing to let him do anything. I told him that's how barred owls are, especially when they're hurt. Over the phone, I told him to be careful and secure its feet, and asked him to feel around its breastbone, to see if it was emaciated. He said it was nice and rounded out, like a chicken's. 

I told him, as I tell everyone, not to offer it any preserved meat. No hotdogs, no jerky, no bacon. You'd be shocked how many people give hotdogs, ham or lunch meat to raptors, and how very bad the salt and nitrates are for them. But too often, it's the only thing people have in their house that resembles meat.

"I have wild game in the freezer. Squirrel. Would that be OK?"

"That would be exactly what the owl needs. With fur, if possible."

So Josh gave it some squirrel, and it ate well that night. He said it was about 1 in the morning before it ate, but he called everyone he knew to tell them, he was so excited.

A few days passed, and there came the time for our rendezvous in town, when my Owl Angel, Lee Hermandorfer, would come to pick the bird up and take it to Columbus, to the Ohio Wildlife Center. 

Lee is an artist and a respiratory therapist (note scrubs). This Christmas Eve, she was on her way to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 

"I don't have kids of my own, so I figure I'll take care of them so the people who do can be with their children." Let's just let that statement speak for itself. Said, I'd add, with a smile, and not a whiff of martyrdom.

Please also note license plate, and Lee's modification of her Mazda's emblem. She used reflective tape, so her  owl's eyes glow back at you. Oh my. Whooo thinks of doing that??

Lee also loves clouds as much as I do, as much as Bonnie, who gave me The Cloud Collector's Handbook, does. And she takes amazing photos of the skyscapes as she drives back and forth from our corner of southeast Ohio to Columbus. 

Back to the owl. While they were waiting for me to arrive, Josh and Lee talked about how he'd found it. He told her that his family was at the cemetery to inter his grandmother, and they saw the owl huddled next to a sign by the roadside. 

You could go anywhere with that. Owls and cemeteries and signs. And somehow, the right, gentle young man arrives to bury his grandmother, and then to wrap his coat around a hurt bird and take it to safety. And he has squirrels in his freezer, and is more than glad to care for it until he can meet Lee and me in Marietta.

My first look at the bird took my breath away. It radiated calm and trust and an ineffable dignity.

It sized me up. It was clear that Josh is the person it trusted. He asked it to step onto his glove so I could examine it.

And it did, this wild bird. No flapping, no panicking, just acquiescence. Trust.

It allowed me to stretch its left wing, where I found a break near the wrist joint. It gave me the slightest nibble with its golden bill when I found the bad spot, to tell me that it hurt. Oh poor creature. If I could wave a wand and fix you...

 I couldn't resist digging my fingers into the deep, incredibly silky soft feathers on its head and giving it a little rubdown. I have had a barred owl push back up against my caress just like a cat. It didn't do that, but it didn't seem to mind, either.

I was filled with admiration for this young man, whose car was badly battered and needed a muffler, who called me on a borrowed cellphone, who had cared for this sweet bird for four days, then brought it to Lee.

I purely hated to take it from him. 

Lee drove off with the two birds in her Owlmobile, and delivered them to Kristi, who stayed late to wait for them, at Ohio Wildlife Center on Christmas Eve. 

These people are my heroes.

A Very Scary Owl

Although Bird Watcher's Digest is not a wildlife rehabilitation center, they get a lot of calls about busted birds and orphaned baby birds in season. This time of year, when the phone rings, it's almost always about an injured bird. There's not a lot I can do for most injuries, because I'm not a veterinarian, and I lack the skills and resources to do surgery or administer medication. So when Bird Watcher's Digest gets a call, they call me, and if I can help I do. Anything badly injured has to go to Ohio Wildlife Center, more than two hours away in Columbus.

This little brown-morph eastern screech-owl was found in the road on December 2, 2013, in Waterford, Ohio, having taken a blow to the left side of its head. That's never a good thing, because owl eyes are very vulnerable, and a good smack can damage the eye or the optic nerve and leave the owl blind.

It spent the day in a cardboard box draped with a towel at the office, and Bill put the whole thing in a bigger box, and brought it home that evening.

When he lifted the lid on the Dunder-Mifflin box the owl was sitting atop the towel! It glared at us and hopped down, trundling like a little old man across my big flatfile. I was fully gloved and prepared, and I caught it quickly. Those talons went right through my batgloves, so it was a durn good thing I pulled my fingers back out of the glove fingers at the last instant. I secured its feet and did a quick exam. Not a bone broken in wing or leg. Hoooray!!

The left eye, however, showed a little red blood in the iris, which isn't good. On the other hand, the eye was intact and not deflated, which is good. The pupil seemed enlarged, which means it probably isn't working right, but that's understandable given the impact it took. The owl would need anti-inflammatory medication, something to help with brain and eye swelling. It would be a couple of weeks before we'd know if it was seeing out of the affected eye and thus a candidate for release. We sent it off with prayers and a lot of hope and love for its future.

Before that, though, I cut some raw chicken breast into strips and handed it one on a forceps. The owl snapped it up and stood with the meat hanging from its bill for several minutes. I left it alone, then thought to turn off all the lights. When I returned the meat was gone. Same drill with a second strip. The third strip it accepted right from the forceps and gulped down. So I left it a dish heaped with chicken breast, which was gone come morning.

The bird looked so much better in the morning, when this video was made. It felt good enough to give me a threat display, which thoroughly traumatized me, it was so very scary. You be the judge. Warning. Not for the faint of heart!

Thankful, as always, that we have a place to take such foundlings. Check out The Ohio Wildlife Center's website . 

These good people take in and care for more than 3,000 injured and orphaned wild creatures each season. If you've got some spare dollars, it's a mighty good place to send them. Thank you!

Baby Bird Time

I'm blogging from our hotel in Albany, New York. We're on a college-viewing swing through New England, on our way to teach The Arts of Birding at Hog Island Audubon Camp (not very far) off Maine's coast. On the schedule for today: Bennington College. No matter that Bennington's the country's most expensive college. An artist and editor's daughter can still dream. 

It's hard to be away in June, and I've been away from home since June 10, when I flew out to North Dakota.

I had a trailer behind me. Before I could leave, I had to drop off three baby birds. The first, a newly fledged downy woodpecker I found in our shrubbery. It appeared to have a spinal injury, showing bruising over the back right pelvis. It couldn't use its legs and could barely use its wings. I can't imagine how it ended up that way. There were no puncture wounds. Perhaps its nest tree collapsed? I don't know.

I just knew that I couldn't leave it there flopping on the ground. So I mixed up some Purina One Kitten Chow, ground in a coffee grinder, added warm water and syringe-fed it full. 

Next was a baby robin that a woman had found a week earlier. She called me about it. After I talked with her awhile, I could sense that she had the right stuff and the desire to take care of it. I didn't have time to mess with it, so I told her how to feed it until I could take it. Which was just as I fed the downy. 

She did a marvelous job. Just look at it! She'd never fed a baby bird before. She loved it. Said it had been the best week of her life. I felt sorry that she couldn't finish raising it, but she wasn't permitted to do so, and lived in an apartment complex full of cats which would be a bad place to try to soft-release a robin. 

It was easy to tell that robin had had plenty of love. As well as plenty of kitten chow. FAT.

It sat on my shoulder like a friendly parakeet. It was time to get this bird with other robins, in a big net flight enclosure where it could learn to be a robin instead of a parakeet.

 How I wished I could do that myself, but I had to go. So I took it in and fed it up, too, and prepared a carrier for it. That's two. But there was a third call, another one I couldn't say no to. I don't care how busy you get as a rehabber, there are just some birds you can't turn away. To be continued...

So we're dealing with a paralyzed downy woodpecker and a very sweet fledgling robin. Last but not least, I got a call on the phone the day before my departure. Someone had found a tiny owl on the ground in the woods behind Tractor Supply and brought it, of all places, to the local We Love Pets. Christy the manager has my number. I asked her to send me a cellphone photo of the bird, just to be sure what we were dealing with. 

Yep. Babeh eastern screech-owl. OMG, squeeee! Literally the size of a navel orange, with a creaky little voice that stole my heart. Reeek. Reeeek. 

More anon...

What's Become of Sluggo?

Wildlife rehabilitation is often a long road. Especially with box turtles. Sluggo is a longterm client. You may remember that he was hit in the spine by a lawnmower blade last summer. I couldn't do anything for the injury with its jumbled pieces of shell bone, so I gave him shots of Baytril, a strong antibiotic, to prevent infection, then just fed him and supported him in the ensuing year. 

He won't use his back legs. He has feeling in them, and he pulls them strongly into his shell when you try to pull them out, but he doesn't use them to locomote. He drags himself with his strong orange front legs.

Lisa Fosco of Ohio Wildlife Center in Columbus believes that that's because it hurts to use them. Will that get better? We can't say. But like anyone who has a loved one who's suffering, you cling to hope. 

He's a strong, beautiful gentleman with great color and a nice personality.

I took him in for evaluation at OWC. Lisa immediately set to picking and chipping at the dead shell and bone  around Sluggo's injury. 

The black part looks yuckky but it's actually a sign of healing. It's good, it's what you want. 

Lisa cleaned him up really nicely using her fingers and a forceps. I was wincing but Sluggo couldn't feel it as the bone she was removing was long dead. She pointed to a deeper triangular divot at the bottom of the wound and said she thought that was probably what was keeping him from using his hind legs. Sigh. He's not done yet. The hard part is not knowing if he'll ever be releasable.

To be honest, I thought I'd be leaving him in the care of someone who knows more than I do about such injuries, but Lisa wanted me to hang onto him. She made a good point, that he'd do better with individual attention such as I can give him (when I'm around, that is...) than as one of a bunch of patients in a rehab setting. So she sent him back home with me.

I took him out to see how he was doing.

He was tired of being in a cardboard box, that's for sure. I set him on the concrete and he peed in excitement. And then one hind leg came out.

He was making for the spiderwort tangle, and he really, really wanted to get there. And the other hind leg came out, the one I never get to see.

Truly, he more just dragged them than anything, but they were out and moving, and that's a huge start.

I thought that going forward I should try to get him to walk on concrete, because the second he got into the soft mulch he tucked them back in and dragged himself with his front legs.

Lisa showed me how to massage his legs, how to stroke his feet "so he knows he still has feet, knows that they're still there." 

I hope he comes to trust me enough to let me massage him every day. Right now he remembers getting injections there and he pulls his legs in when I go to touch them. 

I never visit the Ohio Wildlife Center without marveling at the job these good people face. Over 4,000 animals are admitted every year, the vast majority coming in right now through July. Rehabbers call it baby season. There were bunnies everywhere, little blind ones and ones that were big enough to nibble on dandelion greens and clean their faces with quick paws.

And there were baby ducks, standing in their food, dreaming of their mamas.

If you've any extra resources, please think of OWC. The people I saw hurrying around the clinic were so tired they were reeling and punchy, warmly accepting box after box of rabbits and thanking the kind folks who had brought them in. I left, resolved to keep working with my one little case, and in awe of the volunteer network the Ohio Wildlife Center maintains. And wishing I had a few lotto millions to shunt their way.