My Raccoon Life

As colleagues go, I've had my share of beasts. Haven't we all? But it wasn't until I took a stint as an admin in an online writing community that the real animals showed up for work.

In 2016, I'd been the Director of a nonprofit dog rescue for several years, coordinating frequent transports from a high kill region of the southern U.S. to rescue partners in New England. My organization frequently made use of resources provided by the ASPCA's MAP program (Moving Animals Places.) I split my time between this work and the writing community, often participating in podcasts and other live online events, like weekly radio shows. Listeners came to expect the yips and yaps of whichever dogs were currently in my care, as well as the occasional bleat from a goat and grunt of a pig.

Some of the images I have to show are not the best quality. The lighting situation at the home-based rescue was quite bad and I only had the camera on my phone during most of the time I spent there. I've done my best to brighten and sharpen the photos when possible. Still, the images I captured tell a story of the strange visitor who kept returning, first in stealth mode leaving only minute traces to indicate she'd been there, then in full force with clear intentions of moving into the house whether I allowed such a thing or not.

The raccoon invading my home had been orphaned as a juvenile and provided with supportive care until she was able to fend for herself in the wild. She was well known to us and even had a name: Glory. But my rescue didn't engage in wildlife rehabilitation. So, while I knew about her after the incident with her mother, I had no reason to suspect that she would wake up one frosty evening and decide to move in with me. I soon learned, as you can see in the video shared below, that doors and windows posed no obstacle for her. She came and went as she pleased, despite all my attempts to thwart her.

After some time, I converted the spare room into an office so I'd have a distraction-free work zone. So I thought. Not long after I moved all the paperwork in, I came home to find everything tossed and scattered and half-chewed. She'd made her opinion of this change clear! Burglars could not have done a better job of trashing the place.

I have copious footage of my struggles to keep Glory out of the house. In the video below, you will see the crate panels I installed on the doors after she ripped the screens out of them, and all of the property damage she did to the outside of this already beleaguered little house in her efforts to get inside.

This culminated in the event of me awakening one morning to find Glory asleep on the bed beside me. I always kept my phone on the night table nearby, and I was able to snap this photo before I worked up enough nerve to try and slip out of the bed without getting my face eaten. I shouldn't have worried, because she barely moved when I got up.

Some may be wondering why I didn't seek the help of animal control or wildlife services to rid me of this pest. The answer is harsh. Most people may not realize that in many U.S. states, rabies vector species like raccoons, foxes, and skunks cannot be rehabbed or relocated and must be euthanized once they are taken from their point of origin. If I had contacted authorities for help, they would have destroyed her. The only chance Glory had was for me to take the risk of facing criminal charges for "harboring" an RVS wildlife species. While Glory did not live her life in a cage, her lack of fear of humans posed a "public safety risk." I was the bad guy no matter what I did in this situation. As horrific as it seems, in most states where coonhunting is popular, it is legal to track these animals, torture them, and kill them ... but you may face harsh civil penalties, high fines, and possibly arrest if you save one's life.

So there I was, dealing with this crazy raccoon who insisted on being my roommate, bemoaning the amount of property damage she'd done, and breaking the law while I was at it. But after a point I didn't care about that anymore. The house stood open round the clock. She could come and go as she pleased, and often did. I figured if law enforcement was determined to crucify me for saving a raccoon (and because of my disruptive work with animal welfare in the area, they would have jumped at the chance,) they would first have to prove that I kept her locked in the house. That was something they could not do, because she would head for the nearest window any time she heard an unfamiliar footstep on the porch outside. She wanted nothing to do with any other human... but I was a different story.

Glory could not be picked up and handled. She wasn't a "pet" in the sense that most people think. Yet she was profoundly affectionate, as long as everything happened on her terms and in her timing. She learned to climb the furniture strategically to position herself in my lap without climbing on me directly, since that was painful even when I wore heavy jeans. I could touch her, even cuddle her close, as long as she approached me first and not the other way around. If I had reached for her randomly, she might have severed a digit or ten. But if she came to me, she would snuggle as sweetly as the photos make it look, and often give kisses. She never bit my face. Not once. But she did require me to get stitches in my hands and arms a couple of times before she learned to moderate the strength of her bites.

Because of her tendency to bite and the close proximity of our new living arrangement, I made sure to get her thoroughly vetted. Each year afterward, she would receive a rabies vaccine as well as cat and dog core disease vaccines, plus a stringent deworming. Her veterinarian was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which was several hours away from us by car. This typically called for an overnight hotel stay. In the video below, I have clips from one such trip where she stayed in both the La Quinta Inn and the Motel 6. That was the year she had a persistent bacterial skin infection on her rump and tail, for which her vet prescribed medication. The rash cleared right up and never returned.

Glory was a natural ham for the camera. And, as I later discovered, she also seemed to intuit her growing fan club and knew exactly when people in the online voice forums were talking to her or about her.

She enjoyed listening to live music streamed over the internet during various podcasts and programs and would sometimes sit on the dog sofa for hours, clearly paying attention with her ears and her mind even though her little paws stayed busy doing other things. In the video below, you can see the intense concentration on her face as she watches Katrina Ariel sing onscreen.

She paid extraordinarily close attention to everything I did on my computer.

Then one day she picked up the mouse.

She never figured out how to work it, of course, and I'm not sure she knew what it actually did. But she clearly understood that the mouse somehow made the computer people talk to her.

Glory inspired reams of literature from the writing community I administrated. She was the subject of many writing prompts, yielding short stories from all genres as well as some crazy art.

There's no doubt in my mind that Glory thought of herself not only as co-owner of the house, but as co-administrator of the writing group. Just look at her focus! (See photo below.) In case anyone is wondering--no. You cannot pose a raccoon. The only reason Glory sat in my lap and studied the laptop screen is because Glory wanted to sit in my lap and study the laptop screen. I was just fortunate enough to snap a photo of it.

I've talked about Glory in the past tense throughout this story. That's because I am no longer with her, but she is very much still alive and well. Leaving her in the care of a privately run animal sanctuary was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. But tensions between my former county of residence and myself had escalated to the point that I was being openly hassled by local officials. I knew if certain agencies discovered her on my property, they would kill her just to hurt me. Desperate, I made arrangements to surrender her to someone I trusted who was not within the reach of any laws that could be used to justify her death. This person had taken years to find and had herself lost a baby raccoon to DNR-mandated euthanasia while she lived in a different state. I knew she would understand my fears.

In a perfect world, I could go on to say that Glory is still there at the sanctuary and that I visit her often. Not the case. Once again, egregious overstep by local officials and overly aggressive wildlife regulations resulted in a seizure of all the animals located at the sanctuary where Glory spent the last two years. The animals were all relocated to a different rehab facility, and while I believe Glory is safe, I'm sure she is traumatized. Attorneys for the sanctuary that was "shut down" by the seizure have expressed confidence that the case will be dropped and all the animals returned, as claims made against them by the authorities were not only false but arguably libelous. Until the case is settled, I'm hesitant to provide much detail. But Glory's story continues. I will write more about it as it unfolds.