The family had a unique visitor for three days last week: a deer 11-year-old Alexandra Grave named Lily after the family discovered her in the backyard last Tuesday night.

"She'll look up at us and it's like she's a little dog looking up at us," Alexandra's mother, Teresa Grave, said at the time.

Ms. Grave said Lily was obviously injured since its front right hoof was deformed and she was limping. This prompted the family to call the Durham Humane Society, whom Ms. Grave said directed them to the Toronto Wildlife Centre, which said there was nothing it could do (it doesn't cover Ajax). Next, the Graves' neighbour, Janet Pedersen, suggested they call Animal Services at the Town of Ajax. Ms. Pedersen said Animal Services said it was probably going to give birth and should be gone by morning.

"The deer's hurt and nobody seems to want to be doing anything," Ms. Graves said. "I feel like my hands are tied. I don't know what to do."

Lily was still there the next morning, so Ms. Pedersen called Animal Services again and, later that day, three bylaw officers came to assess the situation.

"They said to 'shoo' it away as night fell and maybe it would make its way back to the forest. Not a wise thing we all thought as, again, we live in an area where people rarely stop at the stop signs and at night, who was going to see a deer crossing?" she wrote in a letter.

Town of Ajax bylaw services manager Derek Hannan explained that's the common practice of dealing with displaced deer, explaining nine times out of 10, they find their way back home.

"Once nightfall starts to come they will try to (go) back where they came from," he said, adding deer are often spooked by people so they'll usually roam around at night.

Animal Services determined the deer was OK Wednesday, but on Thursday afternoon, Lily's condition worsened after she finally left the Graves' backyard when it was spooked by an SPCA officer who tried to address the situation. Mr. Hannan explained Animal Services doesn't normally get involved in deer cases, along with most other Animal Services (since they're very large animals), but since it became a danger to residents, pedestrians and drivers by running through the streets, it had to.

"Obviously we worry about the public first and foremost," he said. Mr. Hannan added Lily was so badly injured she had become a hazard to herself when "it had severe gashes on its underbelly" from hopping fences. Unfortunately, he said, animal services "had to take control of the animal" and brought it to the Town's vet, who determined she should be euthanized.

"Deer are big strong animals," Mr. Hannan explained, adding the situation could have been different if it was a fawn, not a 113-kilogram adult.

Shooting it with a tranquilizer to free it later is no easy task because it's difficult to hit a moving target, and shooting at it would be extremely dangerous in a residential neighbourhood, he explained.

Mr. Hannan said deer commonly wander around areas in Ajax since there's a lot of green space. Although it's rare for them to venture into actual subdivisions, "it's not unheard of."