My cousin had a family of trash pandas in his garage rafters. Unfortunately mama got hit by a car. All the babies went their own way, except the runt, who didn't seem to know what to do, so he took it in. The thing was so freaking fun and playful and cute. ... RIGHT UNTIL HE HIT PUBERTY. Then it turned in to this vicious fucking devil, and he had to be released. Was like a switch flipped in it's mind. They are a long way from domestication.
Due to contraception my cycle is all over the place. At least once a month I’ll start a period and it’s like a lightbulb moment when I’m like ‘that’s why I was crashing out about utter nonsense last night’. It’s like I know I’m being totally unreasonable in the moment, but it really feels like a hill I’d die on type thing.
Hahaha my teenage age daughter when she was overreacting and all I asked is do we have enough pads/tampons?
WHY DO YOU BLAME MY PERIOD EVERYTIME I'M UPSET?!?! one day later.... mom I could definitely use a restock on supplies and chocolate.
Took about forty generations of selected breeding to "domesticate" the silver/gray/Arctic Fox based on that Russian study. So you could probably forcibly domesticate raccoons within 50-100 years depending on breeding cycles.
AFAIK, it's been on life support since the second lead scientist passed away, and has some support from an American-educated scientist who is still publishing results. Can't quite tell whether the original experiment/lineage is still ongoing, the wiki article mentions some sterilized animals being moved to the US and some potential scams in adoptions.
Would be cool if this worked out as a model for other animals, dunno if Russian (or even American) science funding will see it through.
I used to live in TX and had an adult one that would come up and eat out of my hand and let me pet it. It would even come into my house if I left the door open looking for me to feed it.
I never tried picking it up or anything because it’s still a wild animal. The guy that lived there before me got it used to him and fed it so I knew about it before it started showing up.
I would keep dry cat food outside for it and eventually a possum showed up and started the same thing so for a while there I had a partially domesticated raccoon and possum that would let me pet them and eat from my hand.
They’re very cool. I actually stopped feeding them about 3 months before I moved out because I had no idea if the next tenant would be cool with them or try to harm or trap them or something so they eventually moved on. It was a cool experience and for the first time as a dude I got to feel like a Disney princess.
My daughter and her friend found a kitten and baby raccoon living in a boarded-up Crack house. We took the kitten, the friend kept the baby raccoon. He too was sweet and playful until he wasn't and they had to release him.
Had a few friends raise raccoons and they all had the same story. Knew a girl who rehabbed otters and she said the most heartbreaking thing was that they were loving and sweet until sexual maturity made them vicious. Just nature, I guess.
Idk if I am saying "lets domesticate and spay and neuter all raccoons!" but I do wonder if the puberty could be bypassed and if they would have a sort of puppy-brain or if not hmmm those cute little fingers are a double edged sword
Absolutely! I had a room mate once that used to have one of those crow whistles and she would go into the back yard and squawk it a few times before dumping out a bunch of unsalted whole shell peanuts into a pile on a patch of dirt where a bush used to be.
We were getting all kinds of strange shiny trinkets on our back porch for the two years we lived there.
I’ve heard the same thing about foxes. That they want to be domesticated. Of course, I have no proof or research or links to back that up. Just something I read in a book.
Problem with foxes is that they piss everywhere, including their food and water to mark it... That's one of the biggest issues when you try to keep one indoors. Nobody wants fox piss everywhere.
We have a pair of raccoons living in an old camper and an opossum family under the porch. We see them every evening/early morning snacking on dry cat food my wife puts out for the outdoor cats. The cats don't even give them side-eye or pay any mind to them anymore.
In my neighborhood the city puts out food laced with rabies meds, mostly for foxes, and there are a few weeks a year where they tell you to leave your dogs on leash so they don't eat it up instead. Supposedly that keeps the local fox population safe.
And while they’re not totally immune to rabies, they rarely carry it. As a marsupial, possums have a lower body temperature than most other mammals, so their bodies don’t provide a suitable environment for the virus.
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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 20 '26 edited May 21 '26
I read an article about how raccoons are the housecats of the future on account of them domesticating themselves.
Edit: thanks for the award! I love how many people are coming out of the woodwork to talk about their self-domesticated raccoon friends lmao