this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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I find that very impressive and important!
I work at a wildlife rehab, and today I got bit by a Screech Owl, an opossum, and 2 squirrels. None of that is pleasant, nor is it the first or last time, but after being bit by a lot of animals, I think on the whole, domestics may be worse.
My wild ones pretty much just want to get away from me, but I'm starting to think domestic animals seem to know that they don't get the chance to escape us, and I think that takes away a lot of the "flight" and we get more "fight" as a result. I've been hurt way more by cats and dogs than anything wild.
Also, you getting them calmed down is very important to their future. If my animals hate me, that's honestly their best outcome. But yours need to unlearn the hard lives they've had so they can be in safe homes. I, unfortunately, seem to be built physically like a lot of people that must abuse animals, since a lot of rescue dogs hate me and have given me some scars! 😅 Even my own rescue dog, after 10+ years never liked me as much as she liked my ex or current wife or any female stranger. Shed go to anyone else before me. She'd go to anyone else before me, even though she didn't quite dislike me, that trust never quite showed up again.
Being able to work with the troubled animals is such an important skill, either to get them care, or in your case to make them able to be rehomed. Good for you for finding out a way to crack the code on these pups! Thanks to you they will get to be someone's good boy/girl like they deserve!
My focus is specifically cats, mostly kittens. I've fostered both friendly and feral moms with young kittens and have only been bitten by the friendly ones. I need to check on the kittens daily to weigh them, and feral moms have been all "flight" when I reach in to borrow their babies, letting me do whatever as long as I leave her alone. In my experience, it's only been the friendlier moms that sometimes get defensive of their babies.
Very interesting! I had one rescue cat I got from someone fostering her and she was a total sweety and I could do near anything to her. Then I took in 3 semi-feral neighborhood cats who where calm enough until I tried to give them any kind of medicine or trim their nails and would then have no issue biting me or scratching me up and then go hide for a while. Thankfully for all our sakes, they were all pretty healthy and long lived! 😆
Thanks for the kind words. I bet working with non-domesticated wildlife is a trip, and sounds like it's also very rewarding
You never know what you're going to see! We get in animals I never even knew existed, or at least anywhere around here. We see a lot of bad injuries, some animal abuse, and a lot of death, but we also see a ton of miracles and the real spirit of survival.
Here is one of my polite patients from today (and a bit of its roommate's rump! These two were very cooperative, but it's been a year since I've done opossums, and I usually didn't have to move them to clean them, so when I went to put these guys in the barrel while I cleaned their crate, they kept grabbing the lip of the barrel and I couldn't get them all the way in! 😁 That tail is just as good as a fifth hand for a number of things.
The one I did after this was very jumpy and bitey (they can be somewhat shockingly fast in small bursts) and it tried to pee on me when I finally got it secured.
They've all got their own backstories they can't share with us, so some have a tougher time coping with us. Feeling them calm down or drift off to sleep after we feed them is very satisfying.
It's a bit tough in that they will never love me like a dog or cat, and they all eventually get let go to where I will never know if they have success in life or not, but I get to know I at least got them a second chance. They're all beautiful and amazing creatures that I'd otherwise never get a peek into their lives the way I do by doing this.