Penny Paye Price is one of those kind-hearted everyday heroes who have made national headlines this year for the extraordinary efforts they’ve taken to rescue animals from winter’s unforgiving elements.
Price and her family in northern Wisconsin welcomed a young deer into their home last Sunday. They spotted the deer struggling in their backyard during severe weather.
Price did not know he was a male until later when she noticed his little tiny antlers on his forehead, noting that he was a baby buck. The family, who are devoted Milwaukee Bucks’ fans, named the young buck Giannis after the Bucks’ superstar power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo.
An hour later, Price recalled, the young buck was only starting to make small movements. Price said that she realized that he needed chest compressions.
“After about five minutes of chest compressions, he started holding his head up,” Price said. “And that’s when my husband started getting nervous. He was like we need to move him into the garage.”
They moved him out to their heated garage, where they brought more towels. Price said she used a medicine syringe to squirt water down his throat, holding his head up because he was too weak to swallow.
“Through the night, I was checking on him and he was doing OK. He was standing up and walking around,” Price said. “He was still very weak, I didn’t think that I could let him outside.”
On Monday, a DNR staff member took Giannis into the facility’s care and warned that deer are susceptible to becoming weak and ill during cold winters, and that they have low fat stores.
The DNR staff member was not worried that he had developed a disease, but speculated that Giannis may have been abandoned by his mother, as most young bucks are. Young bucks are the least likely to survive the winter. Giannis was very weak when he was being transported, Price wrote in her Facebook post.
“He [DNR staff member] told me that the rehabilitation facility does not take all deer,” Price said. “I told him that I would prefer not to know what you decide to do because we would have kept him and rehabilitated him if it was legal.”
On Tuesday evening, Price found out that the DNR euthanized the fawn, as they were not able to save him due to his age and condition.
“I try not to concentrate on that part and just know that we tried to help him stay comfortable and at least he died with love,” Price said.