[Sca-cooks] No Sh*t, there THEY were in MY kitchen

[Siegfried Heydrich]

    Yup, they're a lot of fun . . . while they're young. Most
non-domesticated critters are a real ball until they reach breeding age.
Then, all of a sudden, they're not fun any more. Humans are a lot like that,
too . . .
    I had a buddy missing a couple of fingers and with awesome scars on his
arms from HIS raccoon.  Like you, he had rescued one, and for about a year,
it was a real delight. He played with it, trained it to do tricks (it was a
scream watching it load the bong), and thought it was just a cute li'l puppy
type beastie. It was never caged, and had free run.
    Then it entered animal adolescence, and started getting nasty. The
upshot eventually was that the 'coon totally destroyed his trailer (I helped
clean up the mess while he was in the hospital, and the damage was
unbelievable), almost chewed his hand off, and tore up the deputy who was
forced to shoot him. Several times.
    We had a case down south of us where someone with more money than sense
illegally bought a baby chimp, and tried to raise it as a human. Don't ask
me why . . . If the owner had any sense at all, she'd have had the critter
fixed, which might have prevented it from tearing her arm completely off and
running off into the woods with it. A 10 pound chimp is cute - an 80 pound
chimp can rip you into bite sized pieces.
    Wild is wild, and people who forget (or choose not to believe) this
often suffer for their illusions.

    Sieggy

----- Original Message -----

> My roommate brought home a trio of baby racoons that survived a fire that
> killed their mom.  They didn't even have their eyes open.  The runt only
> lasted two days.  But when Sadie and Ralphy opened their eyes and saw me,
> well, I was mom.  They loved my kitchen, my bathroom was a treat and well,
> their favorite place seemed to be my backpack.  I had to make formula for
> them and teach them everything they would need to know to survive in the
> wild.  So climbing and foraging were part of the education.  I lived in
D.C.
> at the time so would go down to Rock Creek Park and give them foraging
> "lessons".  Your right Sieggy, they certainly do talk!  One of the play
toys
> they liked the best were ice cubes.  I would put one in a small bowl and
> they would play and play and when it disappeared they would run over to me
> an climb to my shoulder and "tell" me all about it!  I had wooden shakes
on
> one wall of my kitchen at that apartment and they were very busy checking
> each shake several times a day looking for insects.  When they were about
4
> months old I found a refuge for them in VA.  What fun!
> Olwen
>
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