Last night, Sam and I rode over to the market to get groceries. When we arrived, I realized that I had left the bike lock at home, so Sam volunteered to wait with the bicycles while I went in to retrieve everything. While I was inside, he heard a strange, crying sound coming from the parking lot. He went to investigate and discovered a small (very small) animal, laying in a spot of car oil, with ants crawling all over it. When I came out, he showed me the little thing, and we decided to take it home to try to help him live through the night, so that today we could get some help for him.
Sam ran around after we got home trying to find some kind of small baster/syringe to feed him with and baby formula which we diluted to help him stay alive. I kept him in some paper towels and torn up receipts until I could make him an appropriate bed.
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| Baby animal sleeps in paper towels. |
After a couple of phone calls, the humane society couldn't/wouldn't help, and neither would animal control (because we don't live within city limits), but the ladies there were so curious about this animal, they wanted to come and see him. This is what they saw:
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| Baby animal still surviving in a small box. Note his tiny size next to the penny. |
Now, we don't know what to do with him. Animal control says he won't make it because he's too small and his eyes aren't even open yet, but they have no solutions for a humane way to kill him. If I put him in one of the fields around here, it will be just like leaving him in the parking lot at the market, but I also can't keep a pet rat in the house, particularly with a Rat Terrier also living here, and knowing that it's a wild animal. I don't know if we should keep feeding him as we have been, or if we should "flush him" as was suggested. I feel ill about the whole thing because I don't think he should have to die a horrible death, and I don't want him to suffer.
For now, Ratatooey (as he's been named, since we don't know what he is) is sleeping peacefully while we figure out what to do with him.
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