Looking out the kitchen window one nice warm day, Brittany Benincasa of Freehold Township, New Jersey, saw an animal in her swimming pool. This wasn’t a trespassing neighborhood dog that thought the pool would be a nice place to chill, it was a young deer! As Brittany recalled, “I saw it climbing out of the pool and onto the pavement. She shook off and laid in my landscaping for like forty-five minutes, then she got up again and walked back towards the pool, leaning over the edge. I had no idea that she could even swim.” Afraid the deer might fall in and drown, she called animal control. Naturally, that’s when the deer returned to the water. “She stood on the stair — there are a couple of jets down in that end. She was actually enjoying the jets up against her body like a massage. Next thing you know, off she went like she had done it a million times. She started doing laps, and clearly knew exactly what she was doing.”
Once the animal control officer was on the scene, he gently but firmly encouraged the deer to leave Brittany’s property. This didn’t stop the deer from coming back every day, usually around one in the afternoon. Now that she knew it wouldn’t drown, Brittany actually didn’t mind sharing her pool with the deer, figuring that it would grow up soon enough and no longer be able to squeeze through the gap in the fence.
It’s possible the deer was attracted to the pool because it has a dark bottom that makes it look like a pond. There’s no need to worry about the deer ingesting pool chemicals: it’s a salt water pool. “It’s food-grade salt, it says it on the bag, and the water’s not even as salty as the ocean.”
Check out the video posted below and let us know what you thought about this bold but adorable deer in the comments at Facebook. Be sure to like and share, too!