Happy Hedgehogs Thank Massimo Every Day

In our world, there are cat lovers and dog lovers. As for me, I’m now most of all a hedgehog lover. On a recent evening, I discovered the delightful book „A Handful of Happiness“ by Massimo Vacchetta, a 58-year-old vet in Cuneo in Northern Italy.

Massimo, who formerly mainly treated cows, describes charmingly how a client came to him with a baby hedgehog in need. He took her home, called her Ninna, raised her and fell totally in love with hedgehogs.

Now he runs Italy’s only „hedgehog hospital“ and has rescued about 3000 tiny hedgehogs which had been abandoned by their mothers or just not found enough food in the fields to survive during the winter. Massimo tells what to feed them when someone discovers them in the garden – no milk! – and describes how grateful the spiky animals are when you nurture them, coming back every day and looking at you with warm black eyes. I’m sure I’m not the only one taking a closer look at hedgehogs now when seeing one in the evening light in my garden.