Last year, during the height of summer in Texas, Breyana Elwell and her husband decided to spend an evening out on their front porch when the temperature started to cool off. In order to keep winged insects at bay as they sat, they brought out an electric fan to blow throughout the night.

“The next day, I went out with my toddler to play on the patio,” Elwell told The Dodo. “I turned the fan on again and forgot to turn it off when we went inside.”

Evidently, the fan caught someone else’s attention.

“An hour later, I noticed a squirrel splooting right in front it, enjoying the breeze,” Elwell said.

Splooting, of course, is when an animal sprawls out someplace shady to try to cool off as much as possible.

“I thought it was cute, but [I] also had some empathy,” Elwell said. “It was a very hot summer last year, and we were in the middle of a drought.”

Rather than bring the fan back inside to be use, Elwell did the opposite. She brought out more fans so more squirrels than one could cool off at the same time.

And she also started leaving out some water and snacks.

Interestingly, Elwell admits that she’d never been particularly fond of squirrels — “They’re pretty much rats with fancy tails,” she said — yet seeing the squirrels cooling off on her porch inspired a change of heart.

She and her family have since gone above and beyond for their fluffy-tailed neighbors.

“We now have a whole squirrel resort,” she said. “[We] have multiple fans. We leave out some water. And we built them a ‘catwalk’ in the trees.”

The squirrels at Elwell’s place now have it better than good.

Nowadays, the squirrels around Elwell’s place are cooled, fed and hydrated, helping them persevere in the most difficult of weather conditions.

For someone who wasn’t previously a squirrel fan, Elwell is as surprised as anyone that she’s become one of their biggest advocates, saying:

“If you would have told me I’d be doing what I do now, years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

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