[caymanjim]

They're pretty great pets. We had one for a while when I was a kid. Its mom got run over and we nursed it and raised it for a few months. Instinctively used the same litter box as the cats. Hung out on the couch sitting on my shoulder watching TV. Friendly and playful. Would follow people around and play with toys.

The biggest challenge is that they basically have hands. He would climb up the kitchen cabinets, grab a box of cereal, open it up and sit there eating out of it like a toddler.

We only had him for a few months before reintroducing him to the woods behind the house. I've wanted a pet raccoon again ever since.

[Ccecil]

A former girlfriend of mine had a picture of her mother holding a Raccoon. I asked her mother about it and she said that they lived out in the woods in Minnesota and they found it on the porch when it was a baby. The mother had died or something so they kinda raised it. It was free roaming in/out of the house but they could hold it and it would also get into their food. She mentioned one time it ate a bunch of mixed nuts...but didn't like one type so it left all those in the bowl. Another time it ate an entire pie...but left her one piece ("so she wouldn't get angry"). She did say it was never really a "pet"...more like a wild animal that sometimes acted like one. This would have been in the late 70s early 80s by my guess on her age in the pictures.

[BXLE_1-1-BitIs1]

They have a lot in common with housecats, except that they are more clever. Decades ago we heard a crunch crunch sound from the rear mudroom. We looked and saw a raccoon reaching in and eating dry cat out of a box with the cat looking on enviously.

Camping I heard a crunching sound, looked out from the tent to see a racoon helping itself to granola in the back of the car. Lock your doors.

[gwd]

I remember reading somewhere once that baby raccoons are actually quite cuddly and tame; but that when they go adolescence, they have a hormone shift that makes them aggressive enough to be unsuitable as a pet. In the story a woman who had raised a baby raccoon was attacked by it after it grew to a certain age.

[zukzuk]

Judging by the murderous sounds you hear all night here in the summer, I would not want to be cornered in a dark alley by a gang of adolescent raccoons.

[mr_toad]

One of the hallmarks of domestication is retaining pre-adolescent behaviour in adulthood, for example dogs barking.

[Nevermark]

Puberty blockers?

If we can set aside ethics, it would be interesting if the result was a truly good life long pet. They are so smart.

[ekropotin]

Well, that sounds a lot like humans offsprings

[dwd]

Wombats are the same. Cute and cuddly when little and one day just snap.

[tdeck]

I've heard the same thing from my mother, whose uncle had a baby raccoon as a pet. Once he got older he became mean and would yank on her hair for no reason.

[riffraff]

There's a Japanese anime from the '70s called something like "rascal the racoon", based on an American book, which tells the story of a kid with a pet raccoon.

I've wanted a pet raccoon since I saw this on TV in the '80s, and raccoons aren't even a thing in Europe :(

[gyomu]

And the anime was so popular it led to raccoons being imported en masse to Japan and becoming an invasive species when their owners released them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rascal_the_Raccoon#Impact

[shawn_w]

Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era. I had that book as a kid. There was a live action Disney film of it; didn't know about the anime version. Neat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rascal_(book)

[mamonoleechi]

Racoons are invading the north east of France: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ijwZROb6g ; they are exotic invasive species: a female get 10 babies per year, and there is no predator

[callmemclovin]

Well at least in Germany they are a thing - a quick google search says there's a population of >1 million raccoons in Germany.

[EdwardDiego]

My wife and I wish our country didn't have such restrictive biosecurity laws, because AWWW THEIR CUTE LITTLE HANDS....

(I mean, there's good reasons my country does have those laws, and I don't _really_ want to have a wild animal as a pet, but I kinda do.)

[trhway]

on the other side - if not for these laws, somebody would have produced a pet racoon breed in several generations, smth like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox#/media... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox)

[mrsvanwinkle]

best HN story ive read in a while. i want a raccoon that eating tinyfist-fuls of cereal steaight from the box it opened, watching TV

[4ggr0]

sounds very similar to a stoner-roommate to be honest. a bit chaotic, but peaceful. hungry, and bored.

[bitwize]

"What do you think we have these wonderfully articulate fingers for? To scratch our asses?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqTt_jDDCio

[barbazoo]

What about the smell? I’ve experienced ferrets is why I’m asking.

[caymanjim]

I can't remember. We had ferrets too, and they smelled. I don't recall the raccoon having a strong smell. Maybe they smell when they're older.