Whatever happened to.. Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel?

  Twiggy, almost 7, gets around and not just on water skis. She has been on national and Canadian television, appeared on a Parisian variety show in 1999, is featured on several squirrel Web sites and makes about 20 appearances a year.   Twiggy and her trainer-/owner, Lou Ann Best, recently were guests on “To Tell the Truth,” and “I’ve Got a Secret,” both of which will air in late August or September, Best says.   In addition, says Best, “I just got a call from ‘The Dave Letterman Show’ on Monday. A late-August appearance is a definite possibility.   Boater101.com, a water-safety organization, “wants to put a boater safety course in all the junior high schools across the United States and use Twiggy as a mascot for water safety,” Best says.
  Does this peanut-sized performer get star treatment at home?

  Consider this. Although Twiggy has her own 5-by-8 room with wall-to-wall mulch and furnished with large limbs from oak trees, says Best, she often has the run of the house and likes to perch on the highest selves she can find.   Although she could eat in her room, she generally dines on the kitchen counter.   For breakfast, there is her favorite – cooked oatmeal with milk, butter and sugar. Lunch and dinner are combinations of pistachios, cashews, sunflower seeds, corn, tomatoes and potatoes – “anyway you fix ‘em.”    She also, “likes to snitch off of our plates,” Best says.   Like any spoiled diva, she treats Jenny, her 5-year-old “sibling,” and understudy, with disdain.   In fact, none of the Twiggy squirrels, she says, have liked any other squirrels, especially not the squirrels delivered to Best for rehabilitation and release.

  “I’ve had up to as many as 18 at time,” says Best, a United States Department of Agriculture-licensed wildlife rehabilitator.
  In 1997, Best’s husband, an excellent swimmer, had a heart attack and drowned after saving his stepfather from drowning.
  Best cancelled appearances for a year. When she returned to the circuit, a water safety message was included.   “I’ve always felt it was the Lord that started this whole thing,” she says. Twiggy wears a life jacket so I encourage water safety.” She tells kids to “wear life jackets and learn to swim, in hopes that it will make a difference in somebody else’s life.”   Although detractors say squirrels shouldn’t be used as entertainers, Best says Twiggy’s life is better and longer than those of squirrels in the wild. She “is quite happy and likes doing what she’s doing,” Best says. She’s very affectionate. She’s loved a lot and well taken care of.”