Undead Squirrel

I was playing with my son in our backyard this morning and noticed something strange in the large Dogwood tree near the house. A gray squirrel was perched on a branch about 30-feet from the ground. His eyes were open but his hind legs were dangling in the air. Here’s a blurry image of the squirrel that I took with my cellphone. He’s circled in red:

Squirrels are usually very aware of their surroundings but this squirrel looked stunned. I walked closer to get a better look and it was clear he wasn’t moving. His front legs were on the branch but he looked dead. I made some sounds and got no reaction. His hind legs and tail were moving slightly but it looked like the breeze was causing movement. This was clearly an ex-squirrel.

Now the question was how to remove a dead squirrel perched high in our tree. We called Animal Control but they don’t remove dead animals from private property.

About an hour later after we went inside, I noticed a squirrel on a branch on the same Dogwood tree. It was the same branch. It was the same squirrel. What the heck? But things weren’t quite right. The squirrel’s hind legs and tail were still just dangling. He was moving around on the branch just using his paws. I watched him for a while, amazed by this apparent resurrection. He scampered across the branch and swung down the trunk. He was a little clumsy but still nimble considering that he was only using his paws. He made it down to the ground and disappeared under the hedges into the neighbor’s yard.

So what the heck was that? One of our friends thought that perhaps the squirrel had been hit by a car and crawled up there and had been in shock. Perhaps but could a seriously injured squirrel climb 30 feet up a tree and out onto a thin branch? And would it then just somehow “come out” of shock and appear normal? Maybe the squirrel had a stroke or seizure? We’re not sure but the whole episode was very creepy. The only good news is that we no longer have a dead squirrel in our tree.