Attack of the Friendly Doe.

My grandmother has a pet deer, Willow... She was discovered as a newborn fawn in the tomato garden last year (this IS Mississippi, remember?) and, for fear of "dogs getting a hold of her", the man who helps my grandmother with her horses scooped her up and brought her home -- and after he touched her, the mother would not come back anyway... Of course, we all know that they just like to have a baby around. She was an adorable little thing, though -- around 6 lbs., and would just lay in your lap nursing a bottle. To this day, she follows my grandmother around like a dog.

Since she is a grown doe now, she comes home for her meals of sweet feed, vanilla wafers and cat food (I kid you not -- people ask why her coat is so shiny and my grandmother is like, "It's the cat food"), but she also does what she pleases and goes where she wants -- there is no caging a deer, no matter how tame she is. She is super-friendly, so we bought her a hunter-orange collar and put an ID tag on her. Well, now my grandmother is constantly getting calls from people who are reporting Willow's whereabouts, sometimes from as far as 15-20 miles away. Usually it's just the standard, "Oh, we love having her around and she adores playing with our dogs", but the other day, she got a call of a different sort.

This particular call came from the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Department. The officer was chuckling when he called, and said that someone had reported being kicked by Willow, which I find absolutely hilarious b/c she is literally the tamest, sweetest thing ever -- to the point that it makes us worry about her. I told my grandmother she should have told the officer that she wanted to know what in the hell someone did to our deer to MAKE her kick them!? I couldn't help but laugh myself, because it's so silly & random. How often do you get calls about your deer attacking someone? I just would have loved to have been there.