My wife likes to name our pets with Native American Indian names which I usually have a little trouble pronouncing and even more trouble spelling. But worst of all is remembering who has what name, so when I drew a blank, I asked her what we should name this squirrel (who's story follows). She said "How about Arapaho?". Without hesitation I said "Then Rappy it is!"

We found Rappy laying in our driveway 24 hours after a huge storm on September 8, 2003. It apparently caused him to fall from his nest. He was soaked and freezing cold and I thought he was dead at first, but his eyes were closed (usually eyes are open in death). When Janine (my wife) picked him up, I noticed a very slight movement from a hind leg, so we brought him into the house to see if we could save him.
He was only about 4 weeks old at the time.
I found a cardboard box, a heating pad and folded a towel to give four layers between the pad and Rappy. After a few minutes I wanted to make sure that it wasn't getting too hot inside the box. As my hand went in I noticed that his eyes were ever so slightly open making a tiny little slit. That's when I thought he might have a chance. I turned the heating pad down to low when it felt like body temperature. Immediately after that, I called the local Vet Hospital and they said that the only people that could help was the Audubon Society. Well, they were already closed for the night, so we were on our own. I went back to make sure Rappy wasn't getting too hot. Only about 10 minutes had gone by so far since we found him, but when I put my hand inside the box about 12 inches from him, Rappy flipped onto his back and kind of chattered at me with his paws flailing. Well, that made me exstatic because I knew he was going to live now. At this point in time, we had no clue how to care for an orphaned squirrel, but we were going to do our best. Janine got a syringe (she has pet rats) and fed him some sugar water, which he drank very easily. After some time went by, Janine went online and found a site called Squirrel Tails that explained how to care for an orphaned squirrel. Well, that was exactly what we were hoping to find and followed the instructions as closely as we could. It was around 8:00 PM, so we couldn't get everything that was needed that night.
The next morning we called the Audubon Society to see if they had any good advice, being the only wildlife "rehabilitors" in our area. I was very surprised to hear them say that we had two options.
#1. "Put him back in the tree he fell from and let nature take its course." (He was at least 60 feet from any tree)
#2 "Bring him to us so we can euthanize him." (I thought the idea was to "SAVE" a life.)

Oh! He told me of another option
#3. "Put him in a cardboard box, put some fruits and nuts in with him, and put it back in the tree in hopes that his mother will find the food and him." (Did I mention that he had been lying there for over 24 hours?)
They told us that if we care for him, then release him; they will get reports of people getting bitten by a squirrel. I told him that I like the "cardboard box" idea and hung up. I didn't tell him that the box as well as him are staying in our house. Rappy is still around, still in our care, still healthy, still loves us and, oh yeah, still terrorizes the cats when we let him out.