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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

I Tamed a Raccoon

No, I'm not balding. ;)

I got home from work and saw it walking down the road. I went after it and it was pretty scared. I didn't see any other coons around, so I decided to try and get it to be friendly. It is a fairly young coon, so I knew it would be easier than trying to tame an adult. I made my movements slower and tried to pick up hints of how it would communicate with other coons. Finally it starts to cry a little. The sound is a warbly sort of chatter sound.. so hard to describe. As ridiculous as this may sound, I tried to mimic the sound, but in a less screechy way. Something I assumed a calm raccoon would sound like if making the same sound. Like magic the coon looked at me and started to get curious. Finally he/she climbed up into my lap. Whenever it would cry, I would start making the sounds again and it would calm back down. After mom, dad, and Nathan came down to see it (dad with my camera, trying to figure out how in the world to use it), I fed it some catfood. It was so cute to see him (I don't know, don't feel like say he/she a lot) grab the food with his hands. I was going to leave him, but when I stood up, he started cry. I decided I should take him up to the house after he start to climb my leg. He gets along great with the new kitten, Scotty (my older cat) just avoids him, and Patty goes from super curious to "OMG OMG I'M SCARED!" It seems that all of his base instincts are well in place and that, despite a little humanizing, he should be able to return to the wildlife with no trouble.