Hi Steemians!

As promised is debt, here is my post telling how my life change because of a small rodent, from the family of the Sciuridae, one handed from birth, with dog complexes and addicted to chocolate.

This is the story of how I got to have Pirulin, my partner these last four years and how a City guy from Caracas ended up with a squirrel as a pet.

Well, first of all, i must say no, i am not in favor of having wild animals as pets although it sounds hypocritical for me to say so, but let me tell you why I have it and the reason why I can not release it.

Pirulin arrived in my life around 2013, at that time I was the boyfriend of a veterinary student residing in Maracay (Venezuela) and it was precisely at his residence where we found him as a baby, he had been abandoned from the nest because he was born with a deformity in his left hand and nature, as wise as cruel, made the mother throw him out of the nest, in fact we tried to put him back in his nest but the mother kept rejeting him. So we decided to take care of it until it was big enough to stand on its own, at that time it was a small sleepy fluffy ball.

As baby sleeping in my lap.

He spended all the time sleeping .

The two things that people always ask when I tell them that I have a squirrel (Besides the reason why I have it) are:

What it eat?

Well he eats fruits more than anything, especially bananas, and despite the idea that everyone has that the squirrels love the seeds and nuts he really do not like them that much, besides he does not know how to open the seeds, it is quite spoiled in that aspect. Also on the recommendation of a veterinarian specialist in squirrels (yes there is one in Venezuela and do not ask me how he survive) I usually give him dog food for its nutrients and since it makes his hair grow shiny and strong.

Why the name Pirulin?

The reason is called pirulin, well I did not choose the name but it suit him, since at the beginning we did not get him to eat anything, neither milk nor fruit and it was not until someone offered him a "Pirulin" (rolled wafer filled with chocolate) that we discovered that chocolate makes him crazy, in fact its species Sciurus granatensis or red-tailed squirrel is considered a pest for cocoa farmers in Miranda(a cocoa-producing state from Venezuela). Soon after he devour a pirulin bigger than his size was that he began to eat everything.

Another question that they usually ask me is

Why I dont release it?

Believe me, nothing would make me happier than being able to release him in nature to be free, but the Veterinarian recommended me not to do it since he did not grow up in nature, he is not afraid of humans, dogs or even cats ( against all natural instinct he try to groom the legs of a cat), he dont know that he should store food or where to look for it, that is, if i let him go it would probably be eated the same day or worse, die of hunger ...

So, I decided to keep it, How much can a rodent live anyway?, at the most 3 or 4 years...or so I thought naively, it turns out that squirrels live up to ¡¡15 YEARS!!

So I will have my partner for a long time, and when I call him that I really mean it, he usually accompanies me when I play videogames (he hypnotizes himself with the TV) and is usually on my shoulder when I'm at home, what it's more as I write these lines he is on my shoulder grooming his tail. He sleeps in a bag that i prepare for him like a nest in the top of my room, as he does not like to sleep at floor level (it's the only instinct he seems to keep), and every morning at 6:00 a.m he gets up and if I'm still in bed he wake me up by sitting on my chest so i go to feed him, and every afternoon as soon as it gets dark he climbs back to his nest and goes to sleep, it's completely diurnal and he sleeps around 10 HOURS!!

Here it is playing videogames with me.

And even when i do the dishes.

In addition to Pirulin, I also have my dog ​​Luna, both arrived at about the same time to my life and both puppies so they got used to living together, so much so that they usually share their food together.

Here is Luna eating and Piru drinking water, I apologize for the dark and poor quality of the picture but it was what I had to take the pic at that time.

As I said, the reason they left him is that he has a cripple hand since he was born with a deformity but the truth is that he does not need it for anything, he climbs and runs as easily as any squirrel.

Here you can see his "bad" hand

Anyway, that's the story of how I got to have a one handed squirrel that thinks himself as a dog, and how Pirulin came to bring me experiences that in my life I thought I would have, and although I wish it could be free through the trees, (well I take him to climb a tree in the yard of my dad's house but it get scared if I walk away and runs back to my shoulder), at least we have each other ,and maybe for many it is strange that i am so attached to him (of course, if he was a dog nobody would say anything) but that does not matter to me,

I am happy that he is alive and in my life.

It's not easy, he completely changed my life routine, but nowadays I do not imagine how my world would be without finding seeds hidden by the house, but hey! he is a squirrel after all.

Thanks for reading my story
Read you soon!
@Danvel