> > In reply, I heard a deep, non-catlike growl. I hissed more loudly, and banged on the windowsill. The racoon growled back, and didn't move. [...]
> >
> > The racoon didn't even flinch! He was utterly unafraid of me and my stick and my yapping. He just stared me down, growling.
> >

Hm. I'd think there are a couple possibilities for the coon's behaviour. (1) It was rabid, as Nyp suggests. I read a few advisories warning that those oh-so-cute-cute-cute raccoons are still a possible source of rabies infection in humans; and so they should always be approached cautiously. On the other hand, (2) Your encounter with the raccoon could have been while it was still in a lingering "fight-or-flight" condition -- that is, after having been chased and severely handled by the neighbourhood cats! If you saw any patches of fur missing out of the coon's chest, it may even have been a Mother coon trying to hide its nursery.


> > The raccons ripped the cat door apart and entered the house!
> >
> > So any other racoon stories or advice?
> >
> > --Jez"who was that masked rat?"zika
>
> I'm sorry to say that I have no experience or advice to offer, but after these last two paragraphs of yours, I am now terrified of racoons.
>
> Don "Doesn't develop phobias easily" Monkey

Err... You needn't be more terrified of raccoons than of any other wild animals (like squirrels or chipmunks -- and I've seen squirrel attacks, too.) People like feeding squirrels and pigeons and so on, and these folks also feed raccoons, with the latter never saying 'No' to a free meal. To keep them safe and properly afraid of humans, wild animals should never be hand-fed; but people do it anyway.

That being done and said... and the warnings and advisories being duly cited... I still have a completely sappy raccoon story to tell, though. Once, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away... Okay sorry. Couldn't resist. :-) Seriously now, long before I met my Dave, and years before we became the happy family we are today, my in-laws once actually KEPT A RACCOON for an entire summer. The way this happened was: One day they opened the house door, and there was a very small, flea-bitten and emaciated raccoon clinging to the screen door of the cottage. Well, it was skin and bones. What did you expect them to do, chase it back into the woods with a stick? So my p-i-l's fed it and took it to the vet. She checked it out, and said that it didn't appear to have rabies (although one can't guarantee such a thing without tests).

One thing the vet did was have my folks hold the raccoon still ("No, YOU hold it down") while she pulled out these long, white grubs out from the coon's sides. She explained that with the continual logging of old forest habitants, the raccoons no longer have dead tree stumps to sleep in; and so they're forced to nest in burrows underground. In these dirt burrows they tend to get infested by all sorts of bug larvae which stick in their fur. Ouch.

The coon was very friendly, and once it was de-wormed, de-flea'd, and nursed back to health, it didn't want to leave. So it went to live with my p-i-l's three or so cats in the garage. It got along fine with them, but then again, it was young (and the cats were adapted to the wild forest life anyway, which I disapprove of, but that's another story). That 'lil coon even learned how to use the litterbox, apparently. The totally neat thing about raccoons -- which beats out playing with any other pet -- is that THEY HAVE HANDS. And they are very curious and playful about everything. It had an interesting, purr-chirruping kind of voice. The raccoon discovered it could get 'out' of the garage by climbing inside the walls of the house, and then exiting a hole that led into the kitchen. Dave says he once reached under the kitchen counter and was surprised to "shake hands" with the coon. Heck, I was surprised it was even allowed to crawl inside the walls -- what if it bit through an electrical cable and electrocuted itself? And then burned the house down? Heh. Anyway, the problem solved itself when it remembered its wild roots and just took off one day. It's never been seen again. End of story. A good thing too, because coons *are* wild creatures. If it were possible to tame and domesticate raccoons, they'd be readily available from the pet stores, already.

Wolfspirit