Pee Wee, we hardly knew ye

I kept the teeny squirrel in a shoebox overnight Saturday night. I was hoping the injury wasn't permanent and that just maybe he'd show some kind of improvement, no matter how small. I checked him pretty frequently and he was always snoozing or munching on a peanut and, while he still wasn't able to move his hind legs or tail, he didn't seem to be in any pain.

That wasn't the case Sunday. Though he still looked pretty chipper, he did seem to be having pain when I'd try to pick him up or move him around to position his wittle legs better. He'd chirp out loudly...it was a much different kind of noise than before. I noticed, too, that there were no pees or poops in the towel...meaning that his bladder/bowel was probably affected and he'd most likely suffer longer and die slowly.

We decided that the best thing would be to euthanize the poor little guy.

Of course, that decision was followed by a discussion of who would be the executioner. I immediately excused myself...I couldn't do it, even though I knew he was suffering. Thankfully, da Zigster stepped up. Then it came to how to do it. Putting him back up in the tree and letting nature take it's course wasn't an option...we'd taken him...we needed to see it through. We don't own a gun...yet. But a gun seemed like...well...overkill, anyway.

We discussed...and dismissed...a half dozen humane ways to kill a 10 oz. squirrel.

"If we could just put him to sleep", I finally said, running various methods through my mind. Carbon monoxide via the car's exhaust? Too complicated. I have a bottle of vicodin...maybe I could crush one up and feed it to him? But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to sneak crushed vicodin into a peanut.

"Ether?" Zig finally suggested.

"Yea...I'll run right down to Walgreen's and get a bottle of ether", I replied.

"No, no...you can buy ether at the auto parts store. It's a spray...it's in starter fluid", he responded. "He's so tiny that it wouldn't take much to put him out."

While he ran to the auto parts store, I held him one last time and fed him a peanut.

He's buried on the beach, near the seawall.