Mack Update

Sep 7, ’07 11:13 PM
for Mel ‘s contacts

Things are going well with my itty bitty squirrel friend. He seems to be PARTIALLY bonded to me at this point. He doesn’t freak when I pick him up now, and lets me hold him for a few seconds. And also, when I peak at him in his pouch (like the picture above) he doesn’t chirp in terror. (In case you are wondering, the other stuff in the pouch is an apple and some apple crumbs. I have to put an apple in the pouch anytime he is in there, because he drinks the juice from it and this keeps him from getting dehyrated.)

Soooooooooo, he must be getting used to my voice or my scent, or a combination of both. The only time he has made the chirpy noise lately has been when I am moving his pouch either underneath or out from underneath my shirt. I am assuming he is freaking because he gets that weird tummy feeling, like when you go down a hill in a car really fast. So, I have been making a conscious effort to go slower. He also doesn’t like it when I empty out the dishwasher… which, hello? Not my favorite thing to do either! So, “Mack doesn’t like it” has been a great excuse to get out of dishwasher emptying duty.

I finally bought him some toys yesterday… they recommended kitty toys. So, I went to Wal-Mart and stocked up. I didn’t witness him playing with them but they were in totally different places this morning… one of them was underneath the pile of socks.

Right now Cody is wearing the pouch, and I have to admit, it is a little hard to relinquish the pouch to my son. I am crazy attached to that little guy already.

A lot of people asked how big his cage was, and where I keep him. He is in my office, and here is a picture of his cage next to the desk and chair… hopefully you can see it isn’t as huge as it looked in the video. He doesn’t stink….. yet. They claim as long as I stick to the prescribed diet, he won’t ever smell. He actually smells like a puppy right now. And he is so tiny, the amount of wee/poop isn’t ever going to be enough to be stinky. We all know how anally clean I am anyway… I have already cleaned his cage twice and he has only been here a week.

So, in the next week or so, I will start working on holding him in my hand and petting him. Right now he is about six inches long, three inches is tail and three inches body, and he is light as a feather. He takes up just the center of my palm, and I have tiny hands! Or, as you can see in the picture, he is just slighty bigger than a wedge of apple!