Albert Sagan for Art-Sheep

A heartfelt story has come to light about a family in Finland that found a badly injured red squirrel which they took home to look it after and ended up living with it for 6 years.
One of the family members who is a reddit user, Priami, uploaded some photographs of the tiny mammal, explaining the story behind it. Priami’s grandmother thought the squirrel was dead at first, but it was when it started moving while she was trying to get it off the road that she realised it was still alive and gave it to her grandson to keep it safe. The family attempted to release the red squirrel but one of its injuries caused him to lose sight in one eye, disabling it from moving around properly. So, they decided to adopt it and called it Arttu.

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Arttu lived with the family for 6 years, from 2007 to 2013.

via boredpanda

 

In this photo Arttu's good eye is made red by the camera's flash.
In this photo Arttu’s good eye is made red by the camera’s flash.

 

Even when the family let him go, he always returned. “He stayed there for a while and then jumped back to my shoulder”.

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“[We fed him] nuts, fruits, berries and mushrooms”.

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“He even recognized his ‘family’ and became very wary if there were strangers nearby”.

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“He also liked to take naps in our pockets”.

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“His name was Arttu (pretty much the Finnish version of ‘Arthur’)”.

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“When it seemed like he had recovered, we tried to release him back to the wild but he fell from a tree and hit a rock”.

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Here you can see Arttu’s grey-coloured blind eye.

“We were very surprised how ‘tame’ he became”.

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“He died of old age. One morning I found him dead, curled up in his ‘nest’ like he was sleeping”.

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