A Texas teen who took an orphaned squirrel into her care built him a teeny tiny treehouse in the style of her favorite restaurant, Whataburger, sending their story viral.
Soon-to-be high school freshman Riley Morgan, 14, lives in Victoria, Texas, with her twin, Gracie, and their parents. Walking from their house to the car one day, the family saw their cat pawing at something in the street and approached with caution.
“She had two baby squirrels,” her father Keith Morgan, 42, a high school teacher, told The Epoch Times. “Of course, the girls are like, ‘Oh no!’ They shoo the kitty away, thinking maybe they fell out of the tree, so we put them back. They were pretty small, so we kept an eye on them and a few minutes later came back out, and they were back on the ground.”
Fearing that other dogs or cats would pounce, Mr. Morgan and his daughters collected the squirrels and brought them inside. They had spotted the mother in the street; she'd been run over.
Riley and Gracie put the baby squirrels in a dog kennel and fed them nutritional supplements for pets. Sadly, one squirrel didn’t make it.
“It was heartbreaking,” Mr. Morgan said, “but watching their hard work pay off, how much they took care of that little squirrel, it was rewarding to see as a father, for sure.”
The twins named the surviving squirrel Dale, and Riley made it her mission to nurse him to full strength.
“Riley would go out, mainly; she’s the animal lover of the house,” Mr. Morgan said. “It got to where she would open up his cage and he would come run to her, sit on her lap, and play with her. She was like, ‘He might be getting big enough to run around the yard.’”
Dale began exploring the yard and climbing trees. He would return to sleep in his kennel at night. Eventually, Riley left the kennel door open; Dale had his freedom, but he chose to stick around. That’s when Riley decided he needed a home to be proud of.
Mr. Morgan said: “Riley is a big Whataburger fan, so we’re thinking let’s make it a little Whataburger restaurant. I like working with wood and doing little crafts. ... I always try to find things that both my daughters and I can do together.”
It took Riley and her father two days to design, paint, and assemble Dale’s treehouse. They called the squirrel to his new home by name and put food inside to encourage him to use it. Visitors to the Morgans’ home delighted in seeing the squirrel in his Whataburger treehouse, and a lucky few were able to feed him by hand.
It was “just something that blew up and I didn’t expect it,” he said.
Dale stuck around for about a year. At the time of writing, it has been around five months since the Morgans last saw him.
“We‘d see him every day, and then we’d see him every week, every month. Now we go out, and any squirrels we see we go call, try to hold up some food, and hope it’s Dale,” Mr. Morgan said. “As much as [Riley] was sad to see Dale not come around as much, she felt like that’s what she was looking to accomplish; to help him grow strong enough to be able to go out on his own.”
However, Mr. Morgan says Riley still loves to care for animals. Sometime back, a little bird needed some help, so Riley was quick to run out there and make sure everything was good. The bird wasn’t flying very strong so she put it up in a tree and “hoped for the best.”
“She definitely has a heart for animals,” he said.
Riley’s passion for animals has rubbed off on her family. One day, while digging in the backyard, Mr. Morgan discovered a warren of baby bunnies who came spilling out into the yard. The family took them in.
In one of their favorite family photos, taken on Easter, everyone is holding a rescued rabbit. Gracie is holding Dale.
