Bruiser's Buddies Wildlife Rehabilitation

11/07/2025

Attention Bruiser's Buddies! If anyone happens to be going from the Rochester area to Albany in the near future and wouldn't mind doing us a small favor, send me a message! Pickle says pretty please!

10/07/2025

06/07/2025

As the last of my first wave of baby squirrels are about to go into pre release in the coming week, I wanted to take a minute to recognize the efforts of all of our Buddies that make this possible. Many of you are finders, you found an animal, you got it contained (some of you overcame a lot of nervousness about handling a wild animal, but you did it to save a life and I'm proud of you!) you got it help. Sometimes help meant a second chance, and sometimes it meant a quiet, peaceful and painless passing. Either way, you all made a difference. Some of you followed here after bringing me an animal, some after seeing my posts in the community pages to increase visibility and make it easier to contact someone when the need arises. Some of you I don't even know how you found me, but I'm grateful you're here. I did this for years without a page or a wishlist or a donation link, but it was also a lot more lonely. Having people out there, watching the 3am live streams, commenting so supportively when the losses pile on, sending us food and toys and blankets....every one of you helps, and I'm able to save more animals because of it I appreciate you more than I can say. So here's the last seven squirrels from spring 2025. Mikey, found and kept for three weeks, joining us for squirrel boot camp (who gave me the worst squirrel bite I've had to date!) Mercury and Saturn (both absolute sweethearts), Copper (so cute but so spicy, although he's chilled out a little this week), Comet (my beauty pageant winner this year), and Nebula (my first black squirrel, she taught me a lot!), found after storms or caught by cats or dogs, or after a nest tree was cut down. They all come here for different reasons, from different towns and counties, and they accept each other immediately and unconditionally as family. They'll likely hang out together for at least the first year after release, and now we know some of them stay friends even beyond that. They're intelligent, social, communicative, and completely individual in their personalities. After this week I'll just have Juni and Alice, I still have Pickle but I'm needing to find him some siblings to place him with...and then it will be more or less quiet until the second week in August when I'll start taking babies again. It got so busy there for a bit that I'll probably do some posts to mention interesting things that came up this season, but otherwise I'll be cleaning the squirrel room, and rearranging some stuff in there. I'm also working on some merch for fund raising, because a lot of people have asked and because it sounds cute. So stay tuned for that and for future intakes! Bruiser's Buddies are the best buddies💗🐿️

02/07/2025

Now I know you all know I don't do bunnies, but somehow I DID end up with two bunnies! Mr Bruiser (my incredibly tolerant and supportive husband) actually handled most of their care, which included moving them in and out of the house everyday to avoid being weasel food overnight, and feeding them approximately 75% of our 1.5acre lawn. They are now living their best lives in our way out back yard, and I've gotten more bunny calls since, but have been able to pass them off to other rehabbers. I've got seven squirrels going into pre release in the next week and I'm looking forward to a little break before fall babies start coming in...

26/06/2025

We had two more unusual visitors yesterday, but unfortunately they didn't make it through the night. They were both dehydrated and emaciated, and when you're this small just a few missed meals can be fatal. Goodbye little ones, I hope your journey is peaceful. 💗🐭

26/06/2025

Update, request has been fulfilled, thank you buddies!!!

I'm not great at asking for help but I'm going for it. I'm looking for someone with a functioning spine and a big truck or trailer to move this release cage from up near Seabreeze area to Castleton road in 14616. This would be an upgraded release cage for an excellent squirrel host, we've been making do with a smaller setup but this would be great as she intends to continue hosting yearly. Measurements are 37.25" W x 76.75" L x 68.75" H, it is probably more awkward than heavy but will also probably need a few people to lift it etc and I won't be able to be one of them...if you can help, send me a message. Thank you!! Cute squirrel pictures to sweeten the deal 💗

25/06/2025

It's been a busy week. I've lost track of how many calls, texts, and messages I've gotten. Of how many broken little bodies I've seen, of how many lives I've ended with humane euthanasia, of how many animals I've moved from the road. I am tired. This is the hardest part of the season. This is where the risk of burnout is the most real. I'm close. "I have limits", I remind myself almost daily. This past Saturday I took in Cucumber, a relatively late baby at just five weeks old when everyone else I have is in pre-release or about to go, but a perfect match for Pickle, who's been keeping Alice company, but I was worried about not having a release buddy for him. The finder had been feeding Cucumber. The wrong formula, the wrong delivery method, without knowing how much he weighed and therefore how much to feed him, and without knowing how much he was eating every feeding. He was also exposed to kittens.
When I got Cucumber, he had watery diarrhea, diarrhea caked in his fur, he was dehydrated, he was emaciated, he had an extremely obvious arm injury, his breathing was clicky from pneumonia, he was cold. Cucumber was the absolute textbook example of why we don't want people trying to feed babies. I hydrated him, slowly, I started diluted formula after 24 hours. I got the diarrhea to stop and cleaned his fur, I treated the pneumonia, I got the swelling down in the foreleg at which point it became obvious that it was broken. I took him to the wildlife hospital at Cornell. The foreleg was broken in two places and was not salvageable, he wouldn't have been releasable and he would have been in constant pain for the rest of his life as a nonreleasable education ambassador. Cucumber rode to Cornell in my shirt to keep warm, and I'm glad I got to provide him that comfort before he had to die. Based on the timeline I have and the presentation of the injury, it seems likely that his arm was broken after he was found. I don't know this for sure. I am sad, I am angry. I am so tired. I wish people would just stop thinking that raising a baby squirrel will be a fun cute side project with no concept at all of what it entails, if what a baby squirrel needs to make it to release. The knowledge that there is no longer a Cucumber, but that there will be more just like him in the future, is daunting. I'll save some, I'll lose some. Now I have to hope for a tragedy, for another baby to be found so that Pickle has the best chance of success. I hope whoever finds that baby does the right thing.
Goodbye Cucumber, you were loved while you were here.

24/06/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1G6Qycnj1S/

I'm sharing this not because I knew Mikayla well but because every single one of us who does this work, particularly those of us with social media presence, faces criticism from armchair animal experts just about every day. My video about the squirrel with aspiration pneumonia got plenty of ignorant, insulting, presumptive comments from people who clearly didn't watch or listen to the whole thing and KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the work we do. I've had people tell me directly that I should stop doing this work, more than once, when I inform them that their actions caused the death of an animal. I'm not here to protect people from knowing the consequences of their actions, and I owe it to the animals to educate people so the same d@mn thing doesn't happen the next time they find wildlife in distress. We do this for the animals, and for the joy it brings us, period.
Thank you Mikayla for your years of tireless rescue work. Our deepest sympathies go out to the family and furry loved ones you had to leave behind. 💗🦊

19/06/2025

Longish video update with lots of cute shenanigans and Juni footage!

19/06/2025

THIS. People look at me like I have two heads when I say that rodenticide doesn't solve rodent problems but if it solved them, you wouldn't have to keep paying exterminators to poison your entire ecosystem year after year.
https://www.facebook.com/share/16EFsKJUhu/

17/06/2025

The noisy dinosaurs in question 🤣🐦 🦖