Ice Cream Eating Squirrel… Who Knew??

Original Source: Buzzfeed

This is Putter. She is currently living her best life because she gets free, custom-made mini ice cream cones not once, but twice every day.

It all started about a year ago when Pam Martin noticed a little squirrel hanging around Fantasy Isle Ice Cream and Mini Golf, a shop she and her husband own in Holden Beach, North Carolina.

“A woman came back into the shop and said that she offered the squirrel a little bit of her cone and she took the whole thing,” Martin told BuzzFeed News, explaining how Putter the ice cream-eating squirrel came to be. “So obviously we gave her a new cone but the little thing kept coming back for more and that’s how we met Putter.”

The Martin’s eventually named the gregarious gray squirrel Putter and began making her her own tiny ice cream cones. Vanilla is her favorite flavor, by the way.

“We didn’t want her to have the regular ones because there’s too much sugar in them,” Martin said, adding that they’ve had to switch her over to sugar-free ice cream because they were worried she would become diabetic.

It’s chill though because that flavor has nuts in it.

Concerned about her over-eating, the Martins put up a sign asking people not to feed Putter. They also give her nuts to try and counter her sweet-tooth.

Also fondly known as Put-Put, the critter resides in a large, old oak tree above the shop and waits for her humans to show up so she can ice cream and chill.

“We open in the mornings and she’s waiting for us, peeking her head out of her nest,” Martin said, laughing. “You call her name, and she literally runs down the tree and comes right to us.”

Martin and her husband have a dog and three cats, and say Putter has become a beloved mascot, local celebrity, and member of their family.

“We’ve been together since we were fourteen and don’t have two-legged kids. It wasn’t in the cards for us” she said. “Putter just joined our family and we love having her around.”