Hitchhiking Animals

[jimsjazzz]

Anyone ever stop to give a poor critter a lift? I don't mean human hitchhikers with their pets. I mean animals hitchhiking alone without human assistance. Of course, since most animals lack an opposable digit we must know how to read other signs that they need a ride.

I recall driving on a dirt road in the mountains of Utah with my mom and older brother when I was around 7. We came across a very small calf standing by the road looking all scared and confused. There were no other cows anywhere in sight so my brother picked up the calf and layed it down in the back seat. We drove for a ways until we found the herd it strayed from and dropped it off. Incidentally, the car we had was a "Maverick". Mom thought that was funny and she was telling everyone that we carried a maverick in our maverick.

Another time in my 20s, I was driving through some woods in Oregon late at night. I stopped along the road to answer a call of nature and heard desperate meowing coming from the bushes. A little kitten came running up to me practically jumping into my arms, meowing non-stop. The little guy was obviously very lonely and scared. There were no houses anywhere nearby, so I figured it must have been abandoned. This was a tough dilemna for me because I was living in a friend's apartment and couldn't keep any animals. I took the cat in my car and drove until I got to where there were some farm settlements around and dropped it off. I'm not sure if that was really the right thing to do, but I couldn't think of anything else. I figured at least it has a chance of being adopted since farmers usually have lots of cats anyway.

[UnionJack]

While I, personally, have never had opportunity to pick up a hitchhiking animal... I have seen pictures of hamsters hitchhiking and even a few of nude women hitchhiking.... Though I have seen these things in pictures, I have no witnessed them first hand.

I can promise you though, should I see either, I will pick them up without hesitation.

[flatcar]

Be very very careful of hampsters, they carry knives

[Fruupp]

I recently brought a car from West Palm Beach, FL to NYC for a friend and when I got to NYC I found a little gecko frozen solid on the trunk! The critter had been on the trunk for almost 1200 miles.

[wolfos]

I've often come across kittens at roadside stops... (food and potential homes abound i guess ^^), a common place to find other human hitchers as well, likely for similar reasons as well!