re: Anybody ever have a pet squirrel?

You’re not wrong. We tried to let ours go after 3 years. He climbed a tree in the backyard, got his arse picked by two other squirrels, and ran back in the house.

Tried again to set him free 2 years after that, he wouldn’t come out of his shoe box. He knew he had it made in our house.

My cousin in Mississippi had one. He found it when it was wounded, then took care of it back to health. It became a friend as it lived in his house with his family. It would play and run on their shoulders, and allow them to hold it. It died in his house a few months after perhaps of a disease.

When you see them up close in a domestic setting, it's amazing to see how quickly they are able to twitch and move.

Elvis was his name, and he was was a cool little red squirrel.

No, but in my old neighborhood there was a tree guy that kept several on his screen porch. I honestly think anything he took down a tree with a nest he would capture them and take them home with him. He was always bringing limbs he cut off trees and sticking them on the porch for them to run around in.

I raised a female cat squirrel,fell out of nest in a storm.Eyes weren’t open,fed it puppy formula with an eye dropper and kept it in a birdcage until it got too big.I built an outside cage,put a wood duck house in it,had a feeder and watered.I, put like a window so it could go in and out when it was about a year old. It came out when up a tree and never went back in the cage.
She would come up on the back porch every day when I was home and look through the glass in the French doors,I would go out and feed her peanuts.That went on for 8 years.

I’ve always loved my pet beaver

Years after I left home my dad had one that would come down out of a tree in the front yard and get a pecan off his knee.

He told me about it one time when I was visiting for a few days, I said I didn't believe him. He says OK I'll show you.

He went out on the front porch in his damn pajamas and some pecans in a plastic bowl. He had told me to stay inside the house by the window and shut up and be still.

He rattled the bowl a couple of times and then put one on his knee and sat still.

Sure enough about a minute later a squirrel comes down the tree about 30 feet from the porch. It looked around and then hopped across the yard, up on the porch, and hopped up his knee and grabbed the pecan. The damn thing peed on his leg a little then jumped off and ran back up the tree.

I asked my dad, did you train it to pee on you too? He said, oh yeah he does that sometimes, he gets nervous!

When I was younger and still at home he used to tell me that when he sat outside under the shed to play his guitar, a blue jay with a swollen left knee would drop out of the trees and perch at the edge of the shed to listen.

I always refused to believe it; I guess maybe that one was true as well??

1) Extremely cute but not very smart (and never will be).
2) Will never be potty trained.
3) Not an affectionate pet.

We had a pet squirrel in the house in a largish cage for 9 years while I was growing up.

We loved her and it was certainly unique to have a pet squirrel, but squirrels are too instinctual and do not make great domesticated pets.

If my parents thought she could have survived on her own, they would have tried to let her go.

My dad had a semi-pet coon when I was a kid.

We had 4 gray squirrels we raised when i was a kid. They are very active and need a fairly big cage and some outside time from it. Typical rodent diet.

Our tamed down very well. One liked to roll over and have his tummy rubbed. They loved interacting with us. They will still have that wildness in them though. Experiences may vary.

i wouldn't recommend it for the average pet owner. They can be a fair bit of work (and you know, illegal).