Reply #5: Years ago a friend and I rescued a baby raccoon whose mother had just been ran over by a car

[madokie]

He took it home and bottle fed it and gave it a home until finally after about a year or so he got so big and started getting a little aggressive towards my friends young kids so he decided it was time to return the raccoon to the wild. I, my family, have our old home place where we didn't allow any hunting so I suggested I take the 'coon to my place and let him go. Well I kept him in the house a few days to kinda get used to the place and then I turned him loose and he took to the woods and I didn't see him for a year or so but I noticed that our dogs food bowl would be empty in the mornings where it used to not be so I figured the 'coon was coming during the night and eating it and that was fine with me as I liked the little fella, we had bonded long ago. One night a year or so after I turned him loose we had a bad, bad, storm, lightning and thundering wind a blowing with a vengeance and I heard the back door rattling, at first I thought that it was the wind but after a while I noticed the rattling and the wind didn't seem to jive so I go to check it out and when I opened the door on the outside of the screen door I seen Mr. Raccoon and his mate and 4 or 5 young'n so I opened the screen door and he led his family in and went directly behind the washing machine with his family following him, where he was familiar with from the few days I kept him in the house before I turned him loose. The next morning all had settled down so I opened the door and out they all went. From that day on when a storm would come up here would come the raccoon with his mate and sometimes with a family and I'd let them in and the scene would repeat. Then after a few years I never seen the raccoon again so I figured he must have got hit by a car or something like that but later my brother was talking to one of our neighbors and this neighbor was a 'coon hunter and he was telling my brother that he had gotten what he thought was the Raccoon that my friend and I had rescued and raised, even thought my neighbor knew he wasn't to be hunting on our property. His excuse was he was only following his dogs and they led him to our place. Needless to say I have nothing good to say about that neighbor and never will again.
The Raccoon knew that he could come to me in times of need. I seen right there that animals have a sense of family even with us humans that many don't believe they do.


I've told this story earlier on in my time here if anyone wants to search it out and read it if they have any doubts about what I'm saying.

Retelling this story has me crying like a baby. :cry: again.