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He found a newborn squirrel in his driveway and raised it. Their relationship is adorable.

Robert "Bobby" T. Squirrel's personality is "about halfway between a cat and a dog."

@robertsquirrel/TikTok

Bobby the squirrel lives outside now, but still comes in for a human visit pretty much every day.

When Ron Milburn came across a tiny, hairless creature the size of his thumb in his driveway, he had no idea what it was. So he took it inside, wrapped it up to keep it warm and started Googling.

After figuring out it was a newborn squirrel that had probably fallen out of its nest, he put it back outside in a shallow box and waited to see if the mom would return for it. She did come to check it out, but then left it again. (Later, Milburn would find out that the baby squirrel had a mouth deformity which most likely made it unable to suckle properly.)

Milburn didn't think the wee one would survive, but he decided to do his best. He took it back inside and began feeding it puppy formula with a syringe every three hours, around the clock. He said it was "like having a newborn baby in the house."

It worked. The squirrel grew and grew and they began to bond.

Once Milburn knew the babe was going to make it and could identify it as a male, he named him Bobby. (Robert T. Squirrel, to be precise—the T is for "The").

Milburn shared the story of Bobby's rescue and their relationship with Newsner's We Love Animals channel, and I feel a duty to warn you that the video will almost-pretty-much-for-sure make you want a pet squirrel. Milburn shared the video on his TikTok channel dedicated to Bobby, where it has collected more than four million views.

Watch:

@robertsquirrel
From an interview on Newsner who has 30 million followers in 11 languages

But that's not where the story ends.

Bobby has a family now out in his little squirrel house. He and his squirrel wife, Barbara Ann, are the proud parents of four youngsters—Peepers, Jeepers, Creepers and Sneekers.

"Peepers seldom ventures from the treehouse, and Jeepers is a bit more adventurous. Creepers creeps out further, and Sneekers sneaks into other trees," Milburn shared on his website, bobbysquirrel.com.

Milburn's @robertsquirrel Tiktok channel has a trove of sweet videos like this one, in which Bobby came inside because he was scared of a thunderstorm.

@robertsquirrel
Scares #bobbysquirrel #storm #thunder #throwbackthursday #fyp #nature

He knew just where to go for safety and comfort. Too sweet.

Bobby is totally comfortable going back and forth from his outdoor home to his human's home—and his human's pockets.

@robertsquirrel
Pocket Squirrel #bobbysquirrel #squirrel #fyp #nature #funny #love

In fact, Milburn shares, Bobby comes to visit him inside almost every day.

Unfortunately, Milburn has run into some trouble with his HOA, which informed him that he needed to stop feeding the squirrels in his yard as they were considered a "nuisance."

But who could watch Bobby listening to his story being told in the video below and tell us he's a nuisance? Come on now.

@robertsquirrel
Happy time #bobbysquirrel #throwbackthursday #squirrel

Milburn has been asked if squirrels make good pets, and he has clarified that raising one as a newborn is very different than trying to domesticate a wild squirrel. Squirrels do have sharp teeth and long claws, he pointed out in a video with this face covered in Band-Aids. (He shared that he's been working on building a friendship with Barbara Ann, who grew up in the wild, and while it's slow-going, he feels he's making progress.)

Milburn has also created a children's book called "Bobby and Friends," which includes 10 short stories for children ages 2 to 11 and an accompanying coloring book.

People can't get enough of Bobby the squirrel, and who can blame them? He's the pet squirrel most of us wish we could have—one who has a full outdoor life as he should, but who also likes to come in for some cuddles with his people.

This article originally appeared on 1.21.23

From Your Site Articles

National Geographic Documentary Films

Family

Nat Geo's 'Blink' tracks a family finding beauty while facing blindness as they travel the globe

“Let's go all in and fill their visual memory with as much beauty as we can."

via Edith Lemay/NatGeo

Mia, Leo, Colin, and Laurent Pelletier pose on top of their camper van in front of adouble rainbow while in Mongolia.

True

“Blink,” a new film by National Geographic Documentary Films shows how a family with four children, three of whom are going blind, embraces life in the face of an uncertain future. It’s a testament to the resilience of the Lemay-Pelletier family but also a reminder for all of us to seize the day because all our futures are uncertain.

Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier are the parents of Mia, a 13-year-old girl, and three boys: Léo, 11, Colin, 9, and Laurent, 7. Over the last six years, they’ve learned that Mia and the two youngest boys have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease in which the cells of the retina slowly die. As the disease progresses, the person develops “tunnel vision” that shrinks until very little vision remains.

The diagnosis devastated the parents. "The hardest part with the diagnosis was inaction. There's nothing they can do about it. There's no treatment,” Edith says in the film.

However, even though the parents couldn’t affect the progress of the disease, they could give their children’s senses an epic experience that would benefit them for a lifetime.

“We don’t know how fast it’s going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life,” said the parents. Mia’s impairment advisor suggested they fill her visual memory with pictures from books. “I thought, I’m not going to show her an elephant in a book; I’m going to take her to see a real elephant,” Edith explains in the film. “And I’m going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can.”

The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo inKuujjuaq, Canada.via National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky

This realization led to an inspiring year-long journey across 24 countries, during which every family member experienced something on their bucket list. Mia swam with dolphins, Edith rode a hot-air balloon in Cappadocia, and Léo saw elephants on safari.

Colin realized his dream of sleeping on a moving train while Sébastien saw the historic site of Angkor Wat.

“We were focusing on sights,” explains Pelletier. “We were also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We’ve seen incredible animals in Africa but also elsewhere. So we were really trying to make them see things that they wouldn’t have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences.”

Cameras followed the family for 76 days as they traveled to far-flung locales, including Namibia, Mongolia, Egypt, Laos, Nepal and Turkey. Along the way, the family made friends with local people and wildlife. In a heartbreaking scene, the boys wept as the family had to leave behind a dog named Bella he befriended in the mountains of Nepal.

But the film isn't just about the wonders of nature and family camaraderie. The family's trip becomes a “nightmare” when they are trapped in a cable car suspended hundreds of feet above the Ecuadorian forest for over 10 hours.

annapurna range, blink, nat geo Leo, Laurent, Edith, Colin, Mia, and Sebastien look out at the mountains in the Annapurna range.via MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur

As expected, NatGeo’s cinematographers beautifully capture the family's journey, and in the case of “Blink,” this majestic vision is of even greater importance. In some of the film's quietest moments, we see the children taking in the world's wonders, from the vast White Desert in Egypt to a fearless butterfly in Nepal, with the full knowledge that their sight will fail one day.

Along the way, the family took as many pictures as possible to reinforce the memories they made on their adventure. “Maybe they’ll be able to look at the photographs and the pictures and they will bring back those stories, those memories, of the family together,” Edith says.

But the film is about more than travel adventures and the pain of grief; ultimately, it’s about family.

“By balancing [the parents’ grief] with a more innocent and joyous tale of childlike wonder and discovery, we felt we could go beyond a mere catalog of locations and capture something universal,” the directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, said in a statement. “Keeping our camera at kid-height and intimately close to the family, we aimed to immerse the audience in the observational realities of their daily life, as well as the subtle relationships between each of them. This is a film built on looks, gestures and tiny details—the very fabric of our relationships with one another.”

Ultimately, “Blink” is a great film to see with your loved ones because it’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate the wonders of our world, the gift of our senses and the beauty of family.

The film will open in over 150 theaters in the U.S. and Canada beginning Oct. 4 and will debut on National Geographic Channel and stream on Disney+ and Hulu later this year. Visit the “Blink” website for more information.

From Your Site Articles

national geographic

Family

People applauded after Mark Wahlberg confronted the DJ at his daughter's dance party

Dad to the rescue.

via TheEllenShow / YouTube

Mark Wahlberg on "The Ellen Show."

Actor Mark Wahlberg recently attended a daddy-daughter dance with his 10-year-old, Grace. Sadly, Grace had no interest in seeing her father strutting his stuff on the dance floor.

"I didn't get one dance," Wahlberg told Ellen DeGeneres. "And I told her we were going to do the whole big circle and I was going to go off. And she said, 'Dad, if you embarrass me, I will never talk to you again.' But what she did do is she hung out with me."

No matter who your dad is, especially if you're a 10-year-old-girl, you have zero desire to see him dance in front of your friends.

But the parents at the dance probably would have had a blast seeing Wahlberg bust out some of his old-school '90s Marky Mark moves.

However, Wahlberg couldn't help but leave his mark on the music being played at the dance.

Let's not forget, he didn't get famous for his acting but for showing off his abs in the "Good Vibrations" video.

Being that Wahlberg's time as a pop star was three decades ago, he couldn't believe it when he heard the music being played at the dance.

"[Grace] sat there on the edge of the stage, by the DJ. And then I'm sitting there with one other dad and I'm like, 'This is not an edited version of this song. There are explicit lyrics being played at a school dance for girls and I'm like no good,'" he said.

"I told the DJ and he's like, 'Oh, I thought it was.' I said, 'What are you doing?' I'm hearing F-bombs and this and that's not okay," Wahlberg said.

He's right. There's no place for music with explicit lyrics at a dance for 10-year-old children.

Wahlberg says the DJ didn't know he wasn't playing the edited version, but it's probably more likely that he didn't even realize the song was a problem. Pop music these days is filled with a numbing amount of violent and misogynistic lyrics.

A recent study from the University of Missouri found that nearly one-third of pop songs contain lyrics that degrade or demean women by portraying them as submissive or sexually objectified.

Currently, three of the top five songs on the Billboard Top 40 contain the word "bitch." One of them is sung in Korean.

It's odd that Americans have become more sensitive to misogyny in pop culture in films, television, and comedy, but still have a huge cultural blind-spot when it comes to music.

That's not a good thing, especially when pop music is marketed to teenagers.

"We know that music has a strong impact on young people and how they view their role in society," said Cynthia Frisby, a professor in the Missouri School of Journalism.

"Unlike rap or hip-hop, pop music tends to have a bubbly, uplifting sound that is meant to draw listeners in," Frisby continued. "But that can be problematic if the lyrics beneath the sound are promoting violence and misogynistic behavior."

Let's face it, pop stars are role models. Their examples show young people what to wear and how to behave. That's not to say that kids will blindly follow someone just because they like their music. But it has an undeniable effect.

Wahlberg, and any parent who monitors what their kids are listening to, deserve credit for protecting the minds and hearts of their kids.

Frisby has some great advice for parents concerned about negative imagery in pop music.

"Ask your daughters and sons what songs they like to listen to and have conversations about how the songs might impact their identity," Frisby said.

"For example, many songs might make young girls feel like they have to look and act provocative in order to get a boy to like them, when that isn't necessarily the case. If children and teens understand that what they are hearing isn't healthy behavior, then they might be more likely to challenge what they hear on the radio."