Our House Guest

Jamie tried most of yesterday to find a wildlife rehabilitator to take our house guest with no luck. She was calling as far away as Windsor to try and find someone. This morning, it was my job to call the Ministry of Natural Resources. We were made aware that this Ministry could be very difficult to get a hold of - luckily, through Crime Stoppers, I have a contact at the MNR and I called him. He gave me the name and number of the appropriate person and I was set, I talked to a wonderful lady, Janice who gave me some more names of rehabilitators and I called all of them. One lovely lady took the time to explain why we are having such a difficult time finding someone to take our friend. Wildlife rehabilitators are regulated and regularly inspected by the MNR. If they have more animals than they are licensed for, they are heavily fined. They start getting raccoons in March and since the average time that each animal is kept is 5 months, by the beginning of June, they are all full.

Having run out of people to call, I called Janice back to see if there is a vet that they use to euthanize these poor orphans. Apparently Janice is not willing to give up on this little guy either. I'm sitting here waiting for her to call me back and the typing drowns out the noise of our house guest who is lonely and wants company - he is VERY vocal about wanting someone to visit with him - he does not give up. He will rest for a short time, however them he's back at it. He is adorable - both in looks and is personality. It is very difficult not to give him/her a name.

Graham & Nancy & JAMIE's Adventure

Jamie & Scott were gone all day yesterday at a horse show - Jamie actually competed for the first time. It was about 10:30 when they finally got home (after leaving before 7:00 am). They brought home a visitor - a baby raccoon.

Apparently they watched a van stop at the side of the road and drop the baby raccoon off before driving away. As we all know, there was no way that Jamie could drive by that defenseless baby, so....... home it came, wrapped in a blanket that was in my Jeep and which I now have to throw out once Jamie's friend is done with it. He/she is currently resting comfortably in one of our dog crates in the garage (with the blanket of course). Jamie spent a lot of time this morning trying to find someone to take this little guy, but it appears that all of the rescue places have their fill of raccoons. This little guy will be with us until tomorrow when I can call the Minidtry of Natural Resources.

In the meantime, Salt Haven - a very well known rescue organization recommended that we give him as much pedialyte as he'll take every 2 hours.

Now, this morning, as usual, I was the first one up and the first one to check up on baby raccoon. He was all curled up with the blanket over top of him and I could not get him to stir, even poking him. Jamie and Scott were rudely awakened long before they would have gotten up, left to their own devices. Jamie was able to get a bit of a reaction from him. After trying to find a better home for him, it was off to the drug store for pedialyte and a syringe and boy, was that raccoon hungry!!!!! We've fed him twice now and both times he's taken about 9 cc which is what the fellow at Salt Haven said he should probably take.


These photos were tough to get - Jamie woke him up to get them and he wasn't very happy. I'll try to get some better ones when we feed him next.

My Goldfish, Part 2

After chasing the heron off 4 times yesterday and finally ending up sitting outside freezing for most of the afternoon, Graham kindly went out and bought us a heron to live in our pond and protect the fish.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I looked out the window to see Mr. Heron back in the pond!!!!

My Goldfish

This morning, I was sitting in the family room, minding my own business when i happened to look out the window - to see a gorgeous great blue heron standing in our pond............gulping down one of my beautiful 6 year old goldfish. I mean, these guys are 6 inches long. Not only have I become attached to them, so has our cocker spaniel, Emma. Emma loves to go swimming with the fish and they seem to enjoy having her company in the pond. immediately, I hobbled out the back door screaming at this devilish bird that he wasn't going to get any more of my fish.

Once I saw this "monster" eating my fish I knew that we were going to have to get a heron statue to keep this guy away, however, off I went into the internet to see if there was a short term measure that I could use to keep him away. As I'm reading an article (which says that once they find the fish, they will keep coming back to the same place for more) I happened to glance out the window - the heron was once again standing in our pond!!!

This time I hobbled out and stayed out, despite the 10 degree weather - both to keep the heron away and hoping to catch a glimpse of at least one fish so that I know we still have some. I froze, the heron did not show up again and Emma refused to look for her friends - not a good sign. Not a single fish made an appearance despite the food bribe. I finally gave up and came back in the house. I have been back in the house for about an hour and a half and the heron has returned twice more which leads me to believe that there must be something in that pond that he wants to eat!!