My name is Peepee. I am a Southern Flying Squirrel. I was found by my new family in May of 2021 after a dog had caught me and hurt my rear legs. I was only a few weeks old when this happened. My adopted family took me home and called a rehabber. The rehabber had said that it is very unlikely that I would live let alone recover to be released back into the wild. So my family kept me and attempted to nurse me back to health. 

They were very scary and being a wild animal, I would not let them get close to me. When they did, I was sure to bite them as hard as I could. A few months went by and I started to realize that maybe they weren’t so scary after all. They would pet me gently using a toothbrush and sometimes put me in a pouch that they would carry around with them. 

After about 6 months, I would let them touch me and I would jump on them and sit on their shoulders. I thought maybe my human family was not so bad. They gave me a nice place to live and food and water. My home had items from the forest and I would use them to build a nest. Within no time, I adapted to the limited use of my rear legs. I can climb just about anything and one of my favorite things to do is jump onto my human family member from a high place. I glide through the air although sometimes it is not so graceful because I can only push off using my front legs. Another fun thing I like to do is gather nuts around the room and pack them away in my house especially before winter. Sometimes I pull them all out and reorganize them putting different nuts in different places. 

My family takes them from me sometimes because they say too many nuts are not good. I like to eat broccoli, grapes, tomatoes, sunflower sprouts, chickpeas in the pod and watermelon. Since I can’t sit up, I have to eat with one hand and sometimes I hang my back legs over a ledge so I can use two hands to eat. There are also ropes in my home that I can zip around on for fun.

I’m almost three years old now and I’m very happy. My family lets me out to play and look for food every night. If they take me to a different place in the house, I know how to run back to the room where my house is. I’m glad that they take the effort to care for me because my future was grim. I can live 10 to 15 years in captivity so it’s quite the commitment I hope to spend many more years bringing joy to my adopted family and showing others, many of whom have never seen a flying squirrel, what a a flying squirrel is all about. I am happy to be alive!