our pets: A PET DEER TO THE HEART
Saving Bambi
An abandoned fawn
survives to become
“deer” to the heart of
a local businessman
BY MARSHA BROWN
JULY 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
I
t was the middle of the recent spring
monsoon season when everyday seemed to
bring a new meaning to the phrase, “torrential downpour.”
In the midst of an especially nerve-racking,
early-morning thunderstorm, an area homeowner opened the front door of her home to
discover a tiny fawn curled-up and shivering
on the front lawn, in the pouring rain. The
fawn’s mother was nowhere to be seen.
The woman picked up the frightened fawn,
took him into her house and called a family
friend who has rescued dogs and lives out in
the country. She asked her friend if he would
take the fawn — he needed constant care and
she has a very structured job that wouldn’t allow her time to play nursemaid to a fawn.
“I’m a busy guy,” the friend said. “But my
first thought was that I had to save this little
guy.”
The woman brought the fawn over immediately. He weighed less than 5 pounds and
was wrapped in a bath towel.
The man called his cousin who lives in
another state. The cousin was knowledgeable
about caring for newborn deer and gave him
step-by-step instructions on the care and feeding of a newborn fawn.
The man, who we’ll call John Doe, because
he asked that PCT protect his identity, followed his cousin’s instructions to the letter.
That was six weeks ago.
John named the fawn “Bucky,” and he answers to it. In fact, he comes running whenever John walks in. He’s now pretty-well
housebroken (about 80 percent, with only an
occasional faux pas — the deer, not John)
and he follows John around like a faithful
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birddog. His dogs have adapted. “I have a dog that I rescued a couple
of years ago and that dog thinks he’s Bucky’s mother and takes care of
Bucky. He’s as cute as a bug.”
“I have a leash, and almost immediately when he goes out, he does
his business,” John said. “He was 5 pounds when we first got him.
Now he’s about 25 pounds. He loves to come up and lick my nose.”
The week before PCT conducted this interview, John had a bit of a
scare connected with Bucky.
He’d had a pen erected for Bucky that had a small shed to give the
young buck shade from the sun and shelter from the late spring rain.
“A big diesel truck came up to our place to make a delivery,” John