1. Jeff Longo saw a tiny ball of fur on a sizzling street in the intense Florida heat. He didn’t know what this bizarre creature was, but he knew the unrelenting sunshine would take its toll if he didn’t intervene.
2. The baby was just over an inch in length and was already “half-dead.” Jeff decided to nurse the poor baby back to health, despite having zero experience of rearing animals.
3. Jeff took the poor baby home, christened it Biscuits and began to hand-rear her by himself.
4. Without the slightest inkling of which species Biscuits belonged to, Jeff made sure that the first order of the day was to give the adorable and tiny creature some major TLC.
5. To raise Biscuits better, Jeff went to Reddit for help. However, most of the responses were that there was no way he’d manage to raise Biscuits on his own.
6. Undeterred, Jeff didn’t stop his research online and eventually discovered the answer he was looking for.
7. It turned out that Biscuits was a southern flying squirrel, a species of squirrel that usually resides in forests and woods which survives on nuts, seeds, fruits, insects as well as eggs and birds.
8. The gliding rodents tend to stay with their mothers until they are at least two months old. Biscuits had somehow been separated from her family, then, Jeff got the chance to fill her mother’s shoes.
9. For two months, Jeff bottle-fed her with a mixture of puppy formula and heavy cream. He took Biscuits with him everywhere, even to work.
10. As time flew by, Biscuits grew bigger and stronger and eventually became a healthy adult squirrel. Biscuits gained not only the gift of life, but also a brand new family.
11. Apart from her surrogate mother, Biscuits also gained some four-legged friends – Jeff’s dogs. But he had to watch them so they didn’t accidentally squish her.
12. Hand-reared from such an early age, Biscuits was unlikely to return to the wild. However, she found plenty of things to jump back and forth on in her new home, excitedly and chirpy.
13. Though all has run smoothly on the whole, Jeff once thought he’d lost little Biscuits. “When she first started becoming mobile, she escaped… I found her in the bathtub in the morning,” he revealed.
14. Despite her naughty nature, Jeff is smitten with his “little fluffball.””She has semi-free reign of the house when I’m available to supervise. She is super friendly to people and not afraid of animals.”
15. Biscuits seems to have certainly made herself at home. She often inhabits Jeff’s top pocket – her favorite spot. The two can expect to have a long and happy life together.
16. After Biscuits was nursed back to full health, Jeff returned to Reddit to prove his doubters wrong. He even posted an array of Biscuit’s photos, showing off his parenting skills.
17. Jeff’s triumphant photos had many Reddit users eating their words. They got excited about Biscuit’s sheer cuteness and gave Jeff a pat on the back for his amazing achievements.
18. “From now on it is my life’s ambition to have an adorable animal living in my shirt pocket,” one user wrote. It might catch on.
