Squirrels are extremely cute creatures and no doubt most people would love to keep them as pets but as adorable as they maybe they are not like kittens and puppies. At the end of the day they are still wild animals and though some people might claim that keeping a squirrel is not a very difficult task ;it is not for most people. Baby squirrels can be kept as pets but once they become adults they can very troublesome. Wild animals are not supposed to be kept in cages, they are supposed to live in forests and be free. If you ever come across an injured squirrel then don’t hesitate in bringing it home and taking care of it but don’t purposely try to catch hold of a squirrel just because you wish to keep one. It will be disastrous for both you and the squirrel.

Squirrels are not social but solitary animals and rarely rely on anybody for food, protection and companionship.  Baby or young squirrels need to stay around other squirrels until they are atleast two months old in order to learn squirrel behaviour. After they have completed eight weeks of their life they won’t accept other squirrels. If you get a squirrel home and then leave it into the wild after a certain age it will surely die because it has not learnt to fend for itself and can’t even protect itself from predators. Most importantly a domesticated squirrel will not  be able to distinguish between friend and foe. By now we know that squirrels won’t accept other squirrels after eight weeks but the truth is that squirrels don’t even accept any other human after that age. This means if you go out of town you won’t be able to hire a sitter for your squirrel. Your pet squirrel will barely learn to tolerate you in a few months but its attitude towards another person will never be like its attitude towards you.

Squirrels are very choosy when it comes to their living areas and won’t accept a change in surrounding lightly. They might get aggressive or stressed and this might lead to seizures and consequent death. We all know that puppies chew on everything when they are teething but squirrels have teeth which grow throughout their life and they chew on anything and everything they can find- walls, curtains, furniture and this never stops. It will be like having a teething puppy forever. You can’t even teach a squirrel what to eat and what not to. Squirrels don’t have retractable claws like cats do which means they can do more harm to drapes, furniture and the human skin even when they don’t intend to. They have extremely sharp nails meant for climbing, grasping and jumping. They cannot be easily trained and you can never teach them to use the litter box and in most cases when squirrels feel anxious or threatened they are most likely to turn own their owners.

Squirrels require a nutritious and balanced diet to remain healthy. Their diet is not easy to provide, it is time consuming and expensive. You will have to spend hours looking for food, cooking meals rich in calcium and buying and preparing insects as that your pet squirrel doesn’t suffer from any deficiency diseases. Squirrels love to eat junk food and they will do anything to get their hands on them. They are like children and will prefer to eat junk food instead of their meals. They don’t know what is right for them and what is not so it will be your responsibility to see that your squirrel doesn’t eat junk food but healthy and nutritious food. Squirrels have a lot of energy and need huge cages with lots of space. They also need to spend ample amount of time outside the cage; atleast two to three hours on a daily basis.

No doubt squirrels are neat and tidy creatures but they only like to keep their surroundings clean, they don’t really care about other places. They throw anything they find dirty onto the floor be it nut shells, wilted fruits and vegetables, uneaten food, partially eaten insects and other wastes and since they never learn to use the litter box your entire house is like a litter box to them.

Only if an accident or disease renders them unfit to adapt or stay in the wild only then should you think about adopting the squirrel. Even then people who rehabilitate animals and release them into the wild should be permitted to take care of the squirrel. You can show your love for squirrels by not trying to domesticate them and letting them live freely in the wild. By letting squirrels live in the wild we are protecting them in a way. Capturing them and stuffing them in cages only makes them aggressive and anxious. They are wild animals and they do not belong in a cage. To quote the National Wildlife Rehabilitation Association, “A captive squirrel is constantly looking for a way out and that behaviour cannot be changed.”  Squirrels can live up to fifteen years so before getting one home and raising it make sure you can take care of it for that long. Once a squirrel starts living around people; the chances of it surviving in the wild become negligible. So you can’t leave it in the wild when you want to. Once you get a squirrel home you will have to take care of it for life.

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If you think pets featured only in the ‘Pedigree’ and other pet-food advertisements, Think twice! From cars to eatables, soft drink to red bull, shoes to apparels, chocolates to biscuits, telecom service to public interest campaigns; pets, especially dogs, have stayed in the limelight, and in our memories, for quite some time now.

When I thought of writing this article, I started listing out the ad campaigns which have/had featured pets. I remembered the scenes better, where the pets gave their cameo appearances but I couldn’t remember the name of the company or the product they endorsed or the central idea of the ad campaign.

Try it yourself, recall an advertisement which featured a pet, apart from these famous advertisements: Pedigree, Whiskers, Hush-Puppies, Vodafone and  Volkswagen’s car brands.

So what does this tell us? Is it the advertisements that make these pets famous? Or is it our cute furry friends that add their own magic to make these advertisements highly successful?

Let us look at it from the first perspective. Successful advertisements induce certain trends in the breed choice.

A prominent example of an infamous breed becoming a rage is the Basset Hound in late 1960s. “Pookie” is no more known by his breed name “Basset Hound”, he sacrificed it for the brand that he’s endorsing. ‘Hush Puppy dog’ is the popular nickname given to him. Why would someone prefer a less prominent dog to be the brand-ambassador for their leading leather-footwear brand? James Gaylord Muir, the first sales manager of Hush Puppies, established a connection between the word “Hush Puppies” and comfortable leather footwear. In his time, “Barking dogs” was an expression, which meant sore feet. Muir assumed Hush Puppies shoes to be so comfortable, that they would “quiet barking dogs” meaning, comfortable foot-wear for a sore feet. And the Basset hounds best known for their docile, quiet and gentle demeanor are aptly named “Hush Puppies”.

From just being a comfortable foot-wear, Hush Puppy shoes became a style statement and a life-saver (that’s what the company claims!). Keith Richards (guitarist in Rolling Stones), who wore a pair to a concert, was saved from being electrocuted by an ‘‘ungrounded microphone’’. Although knocked-down unconscious, he survived the shock due to the ‘crepe soled’ Hush Puppy Shoes. True! Dogs have always been a friend and a savior to mankind at all instances of time. The advertisement and the life-saving incident made news and went on to increase the sale of Basset hounds considerably.

History repeated itself, in the all-famous example of Vodafone ad-campaign. Before 2003, GenX was never impressed by a dog with a curled tail and wrinkly-short-muzzled face. Adding to its “ugliness” it largely suffered from ‘reverse sneezing’, ‘eye prolapse’, ‘hip socket’ and bacterial infections in its skin folds. But “Cheeka” changed the entire notion with a simple 60 second ad-film.

From the pet that was mostly not preferred by aspirant-pet-parents, Pugs became a heart-throb throughout the world. In 2004, farmhouses went out-of-stock, and the long booking-time really frustrated the aspirant pug-parents. For a meagre Rs.2000 the prices sky-rocketed to Rs.60, 000. It became “neighbors’ envy, owners’ pride”. In 2005, “Cheeka” attained the cult status of a‘poster-girl’  and every Vodafone customers yearned to have her as their mobile-phone wallpaper.   “Cheeka” was not only instrumental in making the smooth transformation of ‘Hutch’ to a successful ‘Vodafone’ but also instrumental in promoting her own breed adoption .

The tribute to man’s best friend in Volkswagen’s “Woofwagen Ad 2013” is indeed remarkable! “Superbowl 2012” not only introduced Bolt (a 3 year old Australian Shepherd and St. Bernard mix) but also aimed at inspiring our own pets to slim down and be fit.

“These advertisements have introduced buyers with a vast range of breeds, both national and international. Petshops and Kennels are flooded with requests for exotic breeds, the pet aspirant may not even be aware of the breed, but demand them by the brand name which they mascot, like ‘Garnier Dog’ [Dalmations in Garnier’s “Spotless Ad”], ‘Dulux Dog’ [Old English sheepdog in Dulux’s “Let’s color” project] and several others. ” Says Rakesh Jain of RJ Pet House. “Many-a-times, customers do not mind to shell out the premium price for the dog in the trend. When the ‘Hutch Dog’ ad became a huge success, our pethouse was only selling pugs for weeks all-together”.  

Not just dogs, even horse breeds saw the same uphill trend when they were featured in some popular ad campaigns. The first of its kind, SuperBowl commercials in 1991-95 featured ‘Clydesdales’, but in the year 1996 the Clydesdales were shown playing football in snow covered meadow. Remarkably, most of what was shown in that ad was real horses playing football after a 6 month long training.

The emotional resonance featured in the ad (2013) made the stable owners fall head-over-heels in love with “Budweiser Clydesdales” and not just any Clydesdale.

After KitKat realesed two of its commercials featuring a pair of squirrel in 2010 and lovebirds in 2012, the number of squirrel and canary lovers grew in population.

Although animated, the fun loving, chirpy, romancing squirrels and canaries shown in KitKat ads, had cast their spell on the school children and college students. The influence was so high, that the demand for the furry little bunch of love (squirrels) and little-winged-wonders (birds) at pethouses became huge in 2010.

 These brand endorsements are, a visual treat for brand-audience, limelight for amazing pets and creative adaptations for the ad agency. The trend setting orchestration of great brands, beautiful breeds and creative ad-ideas was instrumental and influential in many a breed choice, and most of all, a meaningful pet-and-parent relationship, which lasts for a lifetime.

The second perspective, that our cute furry friends add their own magic to these highly successful advertisements, will be covered in the article ‘Brand and Breed Part 2’.

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