Several weeks ago, I was thumbing through some ancient photographs of my backyard friends. I came across this marvelous picture of a baby raccoon I named "Little Bug" playing with our mongrel pup "Cathy". They seemed to really like each other.
Little Bug came into our lives one day when Florence found him crying along side a busy road near our plant. His mother had been killed by a car. This was before the rabies epidemic desimated the raccoon population in this area and scared us all away from close contact with them.
The poor little chap was starving. I found out that he particularly liked bottled baby food and milk and ate it with gusto from a small spoon. I fell in love with him.
Raccoons are intelligent. They have front paws that are extremely dextrous and they manipulate and handle objects in an almost human manner. Incidentally, they are members of the bear family and their babies are properly called cubs.
They learn about the world from their mothers. I found I had to teach him all sorts of things. He didn't know how to climb, so I put him on a low limb and backed away. At first, he didn't like that at all. He would hang on teetering uncertainly and cry woefully for me to pick him up.
It didn't take him long to find out that climbing was fun. He'd climb up to my shoulder height in the tree, transfer to my shoulder and then gently play with my nose and ears. Totally charming! Swimming was the same story. I would take him into our pool on my shoulder and then dunk down to get wet. He liked swimming better than climbing and was an expert in a matter of minutes. His fur dried very fast when he came out of the water...much faster than the dog's.
Cathy became his surrogate mother. She was fascinated by him and would follow us all over. They would snuggle tight in her blanket at night, the very best of friends. He grew rapidly on his baby food diet and was soon eating dog food along with our two mongrels, Cathy and Klutzie ("I've written about Klutzie in earlier letters). We had been supporting a large population of raccoons nightly on dog food and Oreo cookies. He was interestd in them and would go to visit and play with them. There were no problems. The other coons were not at all jealous of his pool privileges.
Now we have only our memories. Little Bug, Cathy and Klutzie, one by one, have left us to go on to "Pet Heaven"
I hope there is such a place.