Lost and Found

     We have an animal that escapes from its cage at least once a day. Usually, we fail to find it right after the initial escape and we just have to make sure that we spread the word of, 'oh, by the way, there's a fox squirrel out in the raptor room somewhere.' I'd clean the cage out anyway and mark on their paperwork that today he got out. The next day I'd come in, and check the paperwork had an encouraging "found" written on it. Since then, this specific squirrel has been lost and found at least three times now. That's teamwork people. Update: According to his paperwork he apparently has a spinal injury, but he seems fucking fine to me. 2nd more honest update: I accidentally let him out again today, though it was less a sneaking out and more of him flinging himself at my face as soon as I cracked the door open.
       I've also learned that too late that you must check the dirty laundry bins for hiding escaped animals, as on my second day I had no Idea that there was a juvenile opossum lose and loaded a pile of scrubs into the wash. I only found him after I was moving it into the dryer and my supervisor commented, ''wow that's a clean opossum," and, "at least we know where the third one is now." I had some moral guilt over this but decided to tell everyone about it so they could learn from my mistakes because that's teamwork too. Now everyone knows to check laundry before washing it, and it has saved the life of many an opossum.
      I have only encountered one animal that has been smart enough to know that yes, he could escape, but his cage was where the food was so he might as well go back. I walked into the songbird/squirrel room one morning only to come to a halt, trapped in a frozen staring contest with a large grey squirrel tensely perched on top of his cage. I didn't move, and slowly she went back into his cage for a peanut, and I closed the cage behind him whereupon I discovered how loose the door was and that he was just kicking the door open to escape. I put some clothespins on the door to prevent further shenanigans and told everyone I saw what happened and not to remove the clothespins. Somehow, someone didn't get the memo and went, 'why the hell are these here?' and kept removing said clothespins. We may have some great teamwork, but sometimes it just feels like we are breaking down from the inside.