
Baby squirrel adopted by cat
Claim:Photographs show Finnegan, a squirrel adopted into a litter of puppies.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2005]
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Origins: It
isn’t at all unusual for an orphaned infant of one species to be accepted by a litter of a completely different species. Dogs, cats, and squirrels are among a variety of mammals whose females will often raise another’s offspring when it is introduced into their own litter — nursing, washing, protecting, and playing with the newcomer as if it were one of her own.
Such was the case with Finnegan the squirrel, who was found injured and malnourished in the Seattle area in, when he was but a few days old. He was brought to Debby Cantlon, an area resident with a reputation for taking in sick and injured animals and nursing them back to health.
What happened next was a bit unexpected. Ms. Cantlon reported that her black and white Papillon dog, Mademoiselle Giselle, who was pregnant at the time, twice dragged the kennel in which Finnegan was being cared for across the house and deposited it next to her own doggie bed:
“She would go and take the kennel and drag it through the dining room, through the kitchen and the hallway and park it next to her bed. I didn’t know if she wanted to the squirrel to eat it or to nurse it.”
After Mademoiselle Giselle gave birth to her pups but continued to pay as much (or more) attention to Finnegan than to her own litter, Ms. Cantlon decided to let Finnegan out of his cage and see what happened. And what happened was that Mademoiselle Giselle adopted Finnegan as one of her own:
“I just gave her the squirrel and she was just ecstatic. She was all over him — lick, lick, lick, lick, lick. Instinct is a wonderful thing. It sort of takes over and tells you what to do.”