Squirrels are sweet.

“Tintin is really affectionate. He loves to snuggle around my neck and give kisses. He also likes being held in both my hands and curling up into a little fur ball. At night, he comes up to cuddle with me and then he crawls to his own bed to sleep.”

They’re also eternal babies.

“Tintin is like a puppy and like a toddler. You need to have a constant eye on him or else he's going to start trouble. Even though he knows that he's not supposed to do something, he's going to to do it as soon as you turn your back on him.”

They live long lives (yay!).

“The record for a squirrel is 20 years. We aim to beat that.”

But you’ll be stuck with them forever.

“You can’t leave squirrels alone for more than a few hours. In the afternoon, Tintin usually goes to bed and then I go out to do some shopping or other things. Because of this, I haven’t gone on a vacation in four years.”

Squirrels are entertaining.

“He's a huge amount of fun, definitely a mood enhancer. He’s very fun to watch and he runs around a lot. I can always hear his pitter-patter on the floor. Tintin also likes to wrestle. He has a few teddy bears that he loves to toss around and give them a good beating. In fact, he still has his first one. It’s very beaten up and has a few holes, but it’s functional.”

And need to be entertained themselves.

“Tintin constantly needs motivation to get his energy out. Squirrels like to run around, so you can’t keep them in a cage. Even if I’m sick or injured, I still have to get up and entertain him and make sure that he doesn’t go insane. Because once they start going insane, they can do harm to themselves, like biting their tail, arms, or legs. It happens when they get stressed and can’t release their energy. They can start to attack humans, too, when they go crazy. I’ve seen incidents where people go on vacation for a week or two weeks and then they come home and their squirrel is missing a tail. What happened was their squirrel went crazy and bit it off. It can survive without its tail, but there will be blood everywhere and it’s very painful.”

They are smart…

“He's very intelligent. We tried a lot of those dog puzzles that you can buy for your dogs to interact with them, and he has managed them all. Even the hardest ones, he's figured them out in no time. The only trick I've really enforced is that he doesn’t bite when I’m giving him a treat. Often squirrels want to grab the food and rip it out of your fingers, but I’ve taught him not to do that and he knows he has to sit nice and come up and give me a hug, and then he can have his treat.”

…but not smart enough to be house-trained.

“They'll poop anywhere. A poop here and there happens, even in your bed. Squirrel poops are kind of like hamster poops: small little pellets. They’re easy to clean, there's no odor, and no smearing off — you just pick it up with a tissue.”

Fortunately, their pee isn’t that gross.

“Squirrels squat to pee and it doesn’t smell bad — it actually smells kind of good, because it smells nutty. It’s almost like peanut butter and it doesn’t have that normal urine smell. Squirrel pee is also not very acidic, so it’s not damaging to wood or anything like that. Tintin is good at peeing in certain spots and not just peeing all over, so I put some newspapers down in those spots and he pees on that.”