cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/50436226
Memories…at the orphanage were I grew up we had a new foundland dog. He was dad to great many little critters. He took care of cats and rabbits. We also were the go-to place for animal kids that lost their mom. We had a roe deer he raised since very little and she was absolutely lovely, but she really thought she was a dog and behaved like one too.
Reminds me of the !LemmyBeWholesome@lemmy.world community. Thanks for that story!
Also, !ItsRick@lemmy.ml might get you.
Dog: ooooh kitty kitty kitty kitty … Oh, hi Bob…
Cat wasn’t sure about the whole thing till its head got licked. It then thought “Oh I get why little kitty is here, this is nice”
Is that someone’s pet deer? I never knew deer could be so tame
Deer imprint pretty hard when they are young. If it was raised from a fawn it would pretty much think it’s human.
That’s why it’s difficult to rehabilitate orphaned deer fawns, because if you don’t do it right they will very likely end up becoming a danger to people by expecting food from strangers and wandering urban environments, causing road hazards and potentially assaulting people who don’t feed them or try to block them from food. Many wildlife rehab centers refuse to take in orphan fawns because the success rate is so low and it takes a lot of resources to do it properly.
It’s also illegal almost everywhere to raise a wild deer fawn as a pet. They may become fairly tame but they are not domesticated and can easily become dangerous. If this deer got spooked it could easily kill that dog with one stomp of the hoof.
My neighbors diagonally across from me feed deer in their back yard. I have a not great photo from a week or two ago, when there were 14 deer in the yard. I think I got 12 in the photo. The bucks usually stay up in the treeline guarding, but this year we have two bucks, probably a couple of two year old brothers, that behave like the fawns and doe. One was 4 point the other was 6 point last time I saw them. They aren’t in the photo.
Lemmy is saying can’t upload image, let’s see if I can fix it.
There we go. 13 of the 14.
I grew up in the rural midwest and our “neighbor” a few miles down the dirt road kept a few as pets and we could feed them grass right out of our hand. It was pretty magical to us kids. I’ve often wondered if this is why I turned out to be so averse to deer hunting, a yearly activity that just about everyone around me including both my parents excitedly participates in. I understand the necessity and I happily eat venison, I just don’t understand the thrill people seem to get. I did it the first few years I was of age because it was expected, but never again after I moved out.
Everybody gets along? How WEIRD!
