It's happens often enough over the course of our daily ravine walks that one squirrel or another will confront us directly, sometimes dashing at us over a long stretch of trail, to ask for a peanut, rather than await their deposit in the usual cache places which they know well.

That hasn't yet started; the squirrels have to become more familiar yet again with the routine, although even over the winter months we also leave peanuts for them in our ravine walks. Today, as we were approaching a stretch of trail where peanuts are usually left in the crook of an old tree, what occurred, we thought, was the first of those direct requests.

From the closing distance as we saw a black squirrel running toward us, I threw one peanut, and it landed directly before the squirrel. The squirrel simply ran around the peanut; I threw another, and the squirrel, which by then we could see appeared very small, ignored the second peanut. A few seconds later it had closed the gap between us, and we could see clearly enough that it was a baby. A tiny, black squirrel, absolutely perfect in its formation, and utterly adorable.

And that minuscule creature's approach had us pulling back on the leashes with Jack and Jill on the other end. They were gigantic in size, in comparison to the baby squirrel. We had no idea how they would react coming up very close and personal to such a tiny creature. The squirrel, undaunted, swiftly stopped right next to Jack, then to Jill, and they all sniffed one another thoroughly. My heart sank. That tiny creature was evidencing complete trust in other animals. Where was its nurturing mother?

My husband handed Jackie's leash to me, bent and picked up the little creature to cradle it in his hand, then strode into the woods off trail, and deposited it into the crook of a tall old pine, and left it there. We can only hope that it will be reunited with its mother, properly scolded, and taught not to trust creatures it had no familiarity with. Otherwise, it will never grow to maturity.

There are more than enough dogs whose owners permit them to run free in the ravine, after squirrels seasoned with knowledge that their lives are on the line. If the squirrels happen not to outdistance some of those dogs they will be mauled to death. We don't even want to give second thought to what would happen to this beautiful little animal if it approaches another dog as it did our two.