My cousin had a pet raccoon he found as a baby on the side of the road. its mother had been hit by a truck and so he took it back to his farm where he raised it and kept it in an old chicken coop. took it to the vet for vaccinations and everything. It lived a pretty long life i recall and so long as you were nice to my cousin it was nice to you.
When wed hang out the raccoon would choose someone’s head or shoulder to perch on doing whatever activities we planned. it was certainly a fun and cute animal to have around. Of course being kids we didn’t think of any consequences of taking a wild animal from the wild. Eventually he would stop keeping it in the coop and the raccoon would just stay on the property and instantly come running to you if you’d call its name.
the biggest issue i remember was its aggression towards anyone it perceived being mean to my cousin. It was so protective. My cousins older brother used to beat up on us when we were playing on the farm, but that stops really quick when you see a sprinting ball of fur with grinning teeth charging you from the horizon. It certainly scratched him up good often and bit him a few times. It was funny to us, likely traumatizing to his brother. It would eventually do this to most anyone besides my cousin so when you’d visit he would have to greet you before the raccoon did.
so true is the meme of the forbidden pet. you wish you could have a little companion like a raccoon but its just best to admire from a distance.
Sounds like my cat
We had one under identical circumstances. Ours was not aggressive, but it would playfully bite a little too hard. It really only liked my father who’d rescued it and me. It treated everyone else like something to climb or just ignored them. It grew into a forty pound behemoth. She eventually ran away from the farm and didn’t come back.
my cousins raccoon also got very hefty. i think i just chalked it up to just how he likely just has so much easy access to food on the farm.
Yeah, we fed ours baby cereal. She’d pack that stuff in like a tiny Japanese guy at a hot dog eating contest. We had to limit her intake.
They’re pretty good pets actually, the big problem is that they simply cannot be contained and will open every cupboard or floor grate in your home and crawl inside making a mess.
I can’t imagine the chaos my cat could get up to if they had hands
And they’re known to dig holes in drywall and get up into your crawlspace and have tons in fun there.
They’re pretty destructive pets, from what I’ve read. Loving, loveable, but too smart maybe.
If you could breed them for extreme laziness… Could be an interesting project.
Speaking as someone bred for laziness…meh
Yeah. I had a thing but I’m not going into it. yawns
Look out, guys, we have a pro here
I read that they’re great until puberty and then they basically go feral. People are encouraged to respond below with fun facts or stories about how that is right or wrong.
I grew up in Florida and knew people who knew people that had pet raccoons. And this was consistently what I heard third hand about pet raccoons.
“they make good pets” citation needed
Please don’t. Protect nature and love nature, but keep it out of your homes ffs.
Is that not possible?
Depends on your definition of domesticated, but pet racoons already exist.
Technically, cats never got domesticated fully. They just sorta live next to us
I would argue there are plenty of cat breeds that are fully domesticated. For example, when you get a ragdoll cat from a reputable breeder, they usually come with a contract that stipulates (among other things) that the cat will not be allowed to roam outside unsupervised because a lot of their survival skills have been bred out. In my experience with the breed, there are some individuals that probably wouldn’t be completely useless trying to live as feral cats, but I’ve met others that I’m not convinced even have a fight or flight response.
Tbh, cats that still have their survival skills also shouldn’t be allowed to roam outside unsupervised. For the benefit of the outside and everything that lives there and is smaller than a cat
Isn’t there some risk of diseases jumping to humans when living in close quarters with animals?
You’ve heard of the bird flu outbreak in cattle in the US that infected (at least) three humans, right? We are animals, and many animals can potentially give us diseases regardless of their domestication status.
If you’re thinking specifically about rabies, there is a vaccine for raccoons.
Keep as a pet? possibly, but domesticate? not really.
There’s a possibility you could domesticate them over time. They have short breeding cycles, are decently social animals, and are infamous for their indiscriminating diet. I think it’s just hard to justify the cost as anything more than a hobby project, though they might do a lot for insects in the home.
Heh I remember this. You’d think they’d only give out raccoons that have been spayed and neutered.
Give me miniturized bears like real bears bread to be small and friendly
