Emotional Support Squirrel

I have two large dogs and live in the country. They are used to killing moles, voles, mice, squirrels and other creatures they can chase down and catch on my property. One ate my daughter’s hamster years ago when it managed to get out of it’s cage during the night and wandered around the basement entrance where my Coydog snapped it up like fingerfood. When I had a client that asked me if she could bring her hamster, I simply told her that my dog ate the last one that was here. She didn’t bring it.

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Yes, the squirrels are brazen and care not about the dogs chasing them. Yeah, guests could ding for sure, but I worry more about the raccoons that battle and screech (mating??) than the squirrels.

My big beef with the squirrels is that they crawl around the apple tree, take one bite out of an apple then toss into the yard. Wasteful creatures! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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I have a squirrel out front who teases my cat relentlessly, gives me major attitude, and throws chestnuts at guests.

They had it coming.

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You don’t know who your countryman Daniel Ricciardo is? He is nicknamed the Honey Badger and has been for years. Tsk tsk. :slight_smile:

Does he drive a racing car, is he Australian? I have heard the name but I presumed it was a Latino name. Sorry don’t follow sport, all that glorifying and paying big money to people with a physical skill. Not my idea of a hero. I had never heard of a “honey badger” until the “Bachelor” has been promoting the hell out of it for the past few weeks so you can’t miss it (try as I may).

Well, yes :slight_smile:

We’ll there you go! There’s some stuff you absorb subliminally.

squirrels seem to be all the rage these days:

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An emotional support squirrel would not be well received at our place. We had to dispense with our ‘own’ squirrel family unit last year - they broke into our attic through roof tiles and were causing mayhem!

Wow. Nice comment …

I just had a guest who wanted to bring her “pocket dog” as an emotional support animal. I have a “no pets” policy and she insisted it was an “emotional support animal.” I have 2 large labs that live downstairs with us, and I explained that even MY animals aren’t allowed upstairs or anywhere in the common rooms, so I’m not going to make an exception for someone else’s pet. Last thing I want is dog pee on my carpets. She went on to the next Air BnB owner I’m sure.

Are you in Bellingham WA? I’ve never seen black squirrels anywhere else.

They were grey squirrels which are classed as a non-native invasive species in Scotland (essentially pests, who out compete the native red squirrels). It is illegal to catch and release greys (and they couldn’t be stopped getting in otherwise). So no choice, really.

Princeton, NJ. I always wondered if they were some sort of lab experiment that escaped

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I had looked in to this before (differences red and grey squirrels). The black squirrels are a mutation of the same species as grey squirrels:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_squirrel?wprov=sfla1]
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_squirrel?wprov=sfla1)

It looks like you and @Xena are in known black spots.

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Make seeing your squirrels a ‘usp’ (unique selling point) say that they get points towards a future booking if they spot ten??
Make your own prize–an extra cake?

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You are all very funny. Seriously though, after a potential guest wanted to bring her emotional support tiny dog and I mentioned it to friends who do airbnb that I had declined due to canine, friends said to be careful because emotional support animals are in a category unto themselves on Airbnb. So I wrote into my profile that my emotional support cats who live here are allergic to other animals. Hopefully it is an out from the rule giving permission to bring any animal into my house. I feel I am not “discriminating” because cats do get territorial with piddle and that is all I need in my airbnb room after an unknown animal would have stayed there.

The “red” squirrels here in southern Spain are a deep chocolate brown, almost black - very pretty. Grey squirrels have not reached here yet but it seems it’s only a matter of time… however, currently I’m more worried that the tribes of feral cats round here will get at them. Particularly when guests disobey our only house rule and feed them (the cats not the squirrels).

I hope they don’t. In Scotland there’s an active programme to stop greys advancing in the Highlands. It is having some success. One if the biodiversity officers that helped me knows the benefits but laments the means; it’s not the animals fault they are here.

I can imagine the cats are very bad for a number of species, particularly native birds. I know that they prey on birds even when ‘domesticated’ so would undoubtedly if feral.

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Domesticated cats that are let outside are terrible for bird populations. Domestic cats should be kept indoors for a multitude of reasons

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