There has to be something deeply ingrained in humans that makes us want to protect anything small and cute from suffering. But theoreticals aside, anyone’s heart would melt at seeing any tiny animal suffering. That said, one woman in Arkansas headed to the bathroom for a quick pee break at 3 am when she was shocked to discover a soaked flying squirrel frantically swimming around inside her toilet. Exhausted and doubtless traumatized, the poor thing had likely gotten through an exhaust pipe by accident.
The woman uploaded a photo of the critter on Reddit, where everyone had a similar reaction: “Poor smol friend!!” Several were quick to identify the creature as a flying squirrel, a claim OP confirmed, noting that it had extra skin flaps between its front and back paws. Using oven mitts, the woman and her family scooped the scared animal out of the toilet and dried it off before releasing it outside. While some might have considered keeping and caring for it as a temporary pet until it recovered, OP didn’t want to give it more unnatural stress than it already had undergone.
Fortunately, the flying squirrel did seem to be okay when she let it go. She described that “It was tired but unharmed,” so it should have been fine finding its way back to its home. Despite it being very early in the morning, southern flying squirrels in Arkansas are nocturnal by nature, so it shouldn’t have had much issue navigating its way through the woods. One thing’s for certain, though: it probably did not smell good at all, having braved the toilet plumbing to escape.
This flying squirrel’s tale luckily has a good ending, with it being returned to the wild. Had the woman not so serendipitously gone to the bathroom that night, the poor thing might have drowned.
