An adorable baby squirrel has been adopted by a family after it climbed up their son’s leg on his walk home from school – and wouldn’t let go.
The grey squirrel, named Nutty, now lives in a custom-built treehouse in their garden in Burnham, eating pistachios and drinking fruit juice.
Nutty comes dashing over when Rachel Philpott, 43, goes into the garden and calls his name, making himself comfy in her neck.
The cheeky rodent is quite at home with the family now, after adopting schoolboy Caden Philpott, 12.
And after refusing to leave, the family have built him his own treehouse in the garden.
Rachel said: “He cuddles up to us and runs up our legs, feeds from our hands and has settled into our family way of life.
“He is so unbelievably tame, I think he thinks we are his family.
“Every time we call him if he’s outside he comes, dances all over us and has a little play about.
“It's been lovely, we’ve become attached to him.”
Rachel told sister paper the Bucks Free Press Nutty also loves melon and various nuts, including Brazil nuts and cashews.
Caden got off the train as he returned from school and was called over by a friend who had found a baby squirrel on the road, on May 27.
The lad tried to return the tiny rodent into some nearby trees, hoping he’d run off, but instead he followed him and climbed up his leg.
The schoolboy tried again, but ten-week-old Nutty would not relent and pursued his new owner for the entire 500m walk home.
Rachel said: “He then FaceTimes me and says ‘mum I've got a squirrel on me he won’t leave me alone!’
“I arrived there about two minutes later with my other son and tried putting him back in bush, but he’d just keep running after us and following us, he just wouldn’t go.
“We came home and my children sat in the garden with him and fed him nuts for the birds.
“He sat in my son's lap and let him stroke him and was running all over him.”
The family then went out for about three hours and left their new pet in an open shoebox in the house after he followed them indoors.
When they returned, Nutty was snuggled asleep in a jumper.
Mum-of-two Rachel said: “We opened the back door to try and get him to go back outside and up the apple tree in the garden.
“He got up there, trembled, and then came back down.
“The boys went to get their pyjamas and dressing gowns on and suddenly he’d crawled up my son's leg and fell asleep in his dressing gown pocket.”
The next day, the squirrel showed no desire to want to leave the house and buried himself in Rachel’s neck as she walked around the house.
She said: “He does a little purr like a kitten.
“We tried to get him down, but every time I put him down he was up back on my neck.
“I'd put a cardigan on so he’d stretch himself across my back and the cardigan just held him and he stayed there all day.
“Ever since then every day we’ve tried to take himself outside as much as we can but he just wants to be with us."
Nutty had firmly seated himself as a member of the Philpott family, but was leaving pinhead-sized poos around the house, and was under the watchful eye of cat Dusty.
So that weekend, dad James Philpott, 43, a project director in logistics, along with Caden and younger son Harley, 10, built him his own treehouse in the garden.
Now the pampered squirrel sleeps in a pillow case in his outdoor chalet, and enjoys three meals a day of walnuts, cashews, lettuce, melon and some fruit juice mixed with water.
Rachel added: “He’s free to go whenever he wants but he seems very happy here.
“We are massively attached to him. We love animals anyway but he’s a wild animal and you just don’t really expect it, it’s very unusual.
“We are all really barmy about him.”
She continued: “I want him to be in the wild and do things he needs to do, but when I didn’t see him for most of the day one day, I was wondering what happened to him.
“Hopefully he’ll learn to wander and come back, but at the moment I haven't seen him leave our edge of the garden.
“I think for the time being we will provide food for him and he’s got his house up in the tree and as long as he wants he’s welcome to stay.”
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