BY MEGHAN MACKEY, INTERNET MANAGER
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| Suzanne Couch and her gray squirrel have traveled thousands of miles together. |
Suzanne Couch has a pet squirrel that has done more traveling than most people. Whether she’s off to a horse show or she and her husband Larry are driving from their home in Salem, South Carolina, to Wyoming to go hunting, “Squirrely” has been their traveling companion since they rescued him almost eight years ago.
Suzanne had saved plenty of young squirrels in peril before, caring for them until they were strong enough to be released back into the wild. But Squirrely was found in January, not a good time for a squirrel to be born, and was particularly young. He never developed a jaw strong enough to crack his own nuts and Suzanne realized the young squirrel would not be able to survive in the wild.
“He still, to this day, cannot crack a nut,” Suzanne said, although he can manage his way into pistachios.
Taking Squirrely on the road was a hard decision to come by. Suzanne said she worried about him having a heart attack, but said he took it all in stride and is better behaved when they’re on the road than at home.
“The funny thing about him, sometimes I do leave him home and when I get home, out of all the animals, I can tell he has missed me,” Suzanne said. “He just wants me to hold him and I’ll pet him and pet him. Now we’ve gotten to where most of the time we just take him with us.”
Traveling with a squirrel has presented challenges from time to time. Squirrely broke a toe on his first trip to Wyoming and left Suzanne and Larry scrambling to find a veterinarian on a weekend.
“I finally found a vet who was 50 miles away, and I said, 'Look, I’ve got my pet gray squirrel here with me and he’s got a broke toe and it really needs fixing. Can you stay open 'til we get there?' He was getting ready to close and he said, ‘If you come on right now.’ So we flew up the road with our squirrel.”
Suzanne said she never would have kept Squirrely if he had been able to survive in the wild, but she and Larry have grown awfully fond of the furry little guy.
“He’s been so much fun,” she said. “We just love him.”
Squirrely was snuggled up in his terry cloth bed back at the trailer while Suzanne competed at her first Bayer Select World Championship Show on her sorrel gelding, Sierra Encore. They’ll compete September 2 in the hunt seat equitation finals before heading back to South Carolina.
When they get home, it will be just about time for Squirrely to get busy making a new nest.
“Every spring and fall he has to make a new bed. He doesn’t know why, but he’ll shred up every bit of newspaper and make a terrible mess,” she said. “But he knows he has to make a new nest."
