# Squirrel!



## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

I think you're right. 

In my neighborhood the real problem is bunny rabbits - we have a ton in every yard. All my neighbors make the same comments you do - the dogs in fenced yards or invisible fences - the rabbits seems to know exactly where the limit is. I can't get out my front door without a rabbit with in inches of where Babykin's leash ends. Have you noticed when they scamper away - it's slowly, enticingly slow. They are smarter than we sometimes give them credit for.


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## oshagcj914 (Jun 12, 2016)

100% true! Squirrels are jerks. Before I moved, we lived next to a woods and our lot was heavily wooded, so we had tons of squirrels. Every day for months, this one squirrel that I named Fatass (not very creative, but he was the fattest squirrel I've ever seen) would come up to the glass patio doors when the dogs were laying by them and bang his front feet on the glass. He would come on the patio and help himself to bird seed if I was in the living room by myself, but he only came up to bang on the door when the dogs were right there.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I have had some weird and creepy squirrel experiences in my life. I was in Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park many years ago mostly for purposes of birding so i was moving sort of slowly and stopping frequently. After a little while I realized a squirrel was stalking me (seriously this is what it was doing). When I move purposely away and onto a different walkway it would find me by going between plants off the paths. After I thought I was about as creeped out by it as I could possibly be it ran up to me and jumped onto my bare leg and started to climb up towards my head. I whacked it off with a bird field guide, but it was very unnerving. They have horrible teeth and I had no food to give it so all I could imagine was getting bitten.

Around my yard these days most of the older squirrels are pretty cautious about dropping in off the fence since they have been chased frequently by as many as three dogs. We did have a squirrel we called stumpy who I fed out of guilt. It lost its tail when the arborists who were taking down a big tree cut through the limb its nest was in. The tail landed one place and the limb another and as soon as the limb reached the ground poor stumpy went flying away down the street. We were surprised that it lived, but it was around for two winters after its accidental amputation.


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## glorybeecosta (Nov 11, 2014)

Oh yes squirrels are awful, they come on the patio, drink out the fountains, and tease especially my 3.5 pounder, and some of those are almost as big as she is. But they are pretty. so I leave them alone


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## zooeysmom (Jan 3, 2014)

lily cd re said:


> I was in Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park many years ago mostly for purposes of birding so i was moving sort of slowly and stopping frequently.


The squirrels in Golden Gate Park are really tame because people feed them. And the ones on the UCLA campus are like pets. My friend used to hand-feed them. I asked her what if they accidentally bit her, and she said she was vaccinated for rabies because she volunteered with primates, so she wasn't worried.


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## lisasgirl (May 27, 2010)

lily cd re said:


> I have had some weird and creepy squirrel experiences in my life. I was in Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park many years ago mostly for purposes of birding so i was moving sort of slowly and stopping frequently. After a little while I realized a squirrel was stalking me (seriously this is what it was doing). When I move purposely away and onto a different walkway it would find me by going between plants off the paths. After I thought I was about as creeped out by it as I could possibly be it ran up to me and jumped onto my bare leg and started to climb up towards my head. I whacked it off with a bird field guide, but it was very unnerving. They have horrible teeth and I had no food to give it so all I could imagine was getting bitten.


That reminds me! I was walking in Hyde Park in London once and a giant gray squirrel came out of nowhere and jumped up on my leg. It just sat there, clinging to my jeans and staring at me, until I slowly brought my hands down and showed it that I didn't have anything. Then it jumped off of me and ran away.

I think that was the first time I ever got mugged by a squirrel.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

zooeysmom said:


> The squirrels in Golden Gate Park are really tame because people feed them. And the ones on the UCLA campus are like pets. My friend used to hand-feed them. I asked her what if they accidentally bit her, and she said she was vaccinated for rabies because she volunteered with primates, so she wasn't worried.



I figured they probably got fed a lot there, and I guess maybe they get fed in Hyde Park too. Personally I am happier about them if they remain feral and far away from me. They are pretty but not when they are climbing up your leg.


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## oshagcj914 (Jun 12, 2016)

I went to Washington, D.C. as a child and the thing I remember most was stinging on a bench outside one of the museums. I was eating a tic tac, and a squirrel came up to me, put his front legs up on my arm, and just sat there staring. I gave it a tic tac and it sat down to gnaw at it like a corn kernel  It was the cutest thing once I realized it wasn't going to jump on me. Bet that squirrel had the freshest breath of any squirrel in D.C.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Now that story about the tic tac is cute. It reminds me of two other "other animal" stories.

First a dopey thing my mom and I did. A number of years ago we decided to go to a deli that makes great specialty sandwiches. We both ended up with items that had warm chicken cutlets in them. We got to the beach and my mom suggested we take all our stuff down by the ocean's edge to find a place to set up and then to go to the ladies' room before we ate. We both should have realized that was a plan with disaster written all over it. When we got back the bag with the sandwiches was no where in sight. The people next to us told us they tried to intervene, but they weren't fast enough to save everything. They gave us a ripped up bag with half of one sandwich. The gulls were very happy though.

And related to the story about the gulls was the warning we were given when traveling in the Canadian Rockies where we were told not to hold food in our hands for any length of time and never to wave our hand with a cookie of a chip or any food in our hand lest a Clark's Nutcracker or Stellar's Jay swoop in and grab the food out of your hand is it flew by. Having, I think, already been through the experience described above, no food was waved in hand by me, but I did see other people have food taken from them in just the way we were warned against.


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## Streetcar (Apr 13, 2014)

Oh, heck ya. At Stow Lake, the squirrels are *highly* accomplished at this. Guessing Tilden, etc., are the same.


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