We live in a pretty great neighbourhood. Somehow we ended up with an apartment blocks away from the Lieutenant Governor’s house in Victoria. As a result of all of the trees in the neighbourhood and the lush gardens at Government House, we frequently have deer roaming through the yard. Cricket still isn’t sure what to make of them, but we enjoy it. There is a mother and fawn who have been frequenting our backyard over the last few weeks. We’ve gotten to recognize them and they no longer spook when I walk mere metres away from them to take the compost out. As I was biking home yesterday something had definitely spooked them as they came bolting out of a yard on Rockland Avenue and were in the midst of running across the street towards Government House when they saw me and a car and panicked. The mother split off to another yard on one side of the street while the fawn ran up to the closed service gate at Government House and tried to do what it obviously could no longer do: squeeze through the gate.

Unfortunately, its hind-quarters got stuck and the poor thing was struggling a lot. To make things worse, every time a car, bicycle, or pedestrian went by too close to it, it would begin struggling all over again. So I called the Victoria Police non-emergency line, as I suspected that the folks who rescue wild animals were already closed for the day. VicPD were great – they were patient as I interrupted my conversation with them to warn pedestrians with dogs to move to the other side of the road and were supportive when I had to firmly request one individual stop their attempts to free the fawn when they clearly did not know what they were doing and were not helping the situation. They arrived at the scene within about 10 minutes and the wonderful officer was able to free the little guy from the gate with very little drama and only a few plaintive cries on the part of the fawn.

Mother, meanwhile, had circled round through the open gate and was watching the whole thing unfold from the other side of the gate. I am sure that the two of them were very happy to be reunited and I hope we’ll continue seeing them in the yard.