Yesterday, January 21st, was Squirrel Appreciation Day. Dogs, would you believe there was a time they were more than simply appreciated? People welcomed squirrels into their homes as pets! Yes, you read that correctly. Even more shocking, according to numerous sources, during the 1700s and 1800s squirrels were the most popular pet in the United States! Sure they had dogs and cats, but in addition to being pets they served a more utilitarian purpose such as assisting with hunting, protection, and even vermin control. Squirrels, on the other paw, served no purpose other than entertainment. As the wealthy gained more leisure time in the eighteenth century, so did their interest in taming wild animals, and thus squirrels made the leap from backyard vermin to domesticated family pet.
According to the article “Squirrels Were Once the Most Popular Pet in the US” on the website Natural State Wildlife Solutions (August 2021), squirrels were considered to be “ideal pets for children because they required relatively little work and could be purchased easily in a market.” In fact, while dogs were working hard back then, squirrels were being led around on fancy collars and leashes, taught silly tricks to perform, and humans even included them in portraits! Clearly squirrels had no sense of dignity. You’d never catch a dog doing silly tricks for a human’s amusement.
It wasn’t all fun and games for them though. According to Ben Miller in “Wild Colonial American Pets,” in Out of This Century (February 2010), pet squirrels led to the use of metal cages to control them. As Miller explained, “Since they could easily chew their way through wood, special tin cages were developed, possessing metal bars sturdy enough to house them.” So next time you’re sitting in a cage, thank a squirrel for that indignity!
As the centuries progressed and their popularity increased, so did the number of books published giving advice on feeding, exercising and training a pet squirrel. Some even went as far as to say treats were the best motivator to get squirrels to do tricks. Again, you’d never catch a dog falling for that lure! These books did caution though that it was best to begin domesticating squirrels when they were young. Which in the 1800s led to entrepreneurs raiding squirrel nests to sell them at markets, and eventually evolved into the pet store industry that we know today!
Thankfully the squirrel’s desire to chew everything is what eventually led to their downfall as pets. As theorized by National State Wildlife Solutions, they probably were “not suited for modern households with wires and pipes to chew through.” The article went on to say that their energy and intelligence made them difficult to contain in cages that they could easily escape from and find tempting things to chew in homes. Take that squirrels! You’d never catch dogs chewing on something we shouldn’t!
As Natalie Zarrelli explained in “When Squirrels Were One of America’s Most Popular Pets,” Atlas Obscura(April 2017), squirrels eventually wore out their welcome, “and by the 1910s squirrels became so despised in California that the state issued a widespread public attack on the once-adored creatures.” By the 1920s through the 1970s many states slowly adopted wildlife conservation and exotic pet laws, which prohibited keeping squirrels at home. Thus ending their centuries reign as popular pets. However, a quick search and I was surprised to find there are some states where it is still legal to keep a squirrel as a pet!
