Ossy Dives Again

We at Tiggywinkles are greatly privileged to meet many of Britain’s wild animals. Sadly they are all injured but at least we do a lot to help most of them recover.

Every now and then we meet a true superstar and Ossy was truly that. Ossy is an adult dog otter who was found, hit by a car, in deepest Oxfordshire. Luckily the farmer who found him, got him rushed to a veterinary centre for trauma treatment and an emergency splenectomy. Ossy was then rushed to us for intensive care and hopefully recovery.
At first he was incapable of any movement and was maintained on an intravenous drip and placed in a nebuliser supplying warmth and oxygen. After 24 hours he was strong enough to be put into a warm intensive care cage where lying on his back it was so painful to see the surgical wound where his spleen had to be removed in order to save his life after the road traffic accident.

He could only lie on his back for the first few days and was initially fed small amounts of liquid feed by syringe. Eventually he progressed to best quality trout which was the only food he would ever eat while he was with us!

Gradually he grew stronger. The metal stitches in his surgical wound were removed and he was able to walk around normally relishing his freshly defrosted trout. Ossy now demanded more room although we did not need to provide swimming facilities at this stage. We, in fact, let him have one of our deer sheds where he quickly settled and showed his appreciation by biting the leg of one of the nurses.

By now Ossy was on 3 to 4 best trout every day and became a strong, handsome otter who snarled and snapped if anyone went near him. This was great wild animal behaviour. Just what we wanted. Ossy was ready for release.

Just to make sure his waterproofing and body were up to scratch, I let Ossy into one of our tiled pools. At first he wanted to get out, but before long dived and swan like the superstar he was. Ossy was ready
to go.

The great day arrived and we took Ossy back to his original neighbourhood around the River Windrush in Oxfordshire. I lined up his travelling box so that he could dive straight into the river. But not Ossy. He came out of his box, took one look at my chosen piece of river, cocked a snook at that, turned, ran and splashed into the river further round the field.

In the river he kept into the bank so we could only monitor his progress by the ripples of his disturbance. And just to our delight at his release, on the riverbank we saw an otter holt and otter spraints – great otter waters