Taming a wild raccoon is no small feat. Raccoons are clever; taming a raccoon involves luring it out of hiding, enticing it with food, and providing a similitude of its natural habitat. Raccoons are often found in urban areas; what you should never forget is, that raccoons are wild animals; you should not be surprised when they try to exhibit their innate character. Information here entails the techniques to adopt for seamless taming and training of raccoons to be a lovable pet.
Techniques for Taming and Training Raccoons
Tame raccoons can be unpredictable and mischievous. Raccoons have their own needs and desires; so the first attempt to tame them is to find out their needs and desires like their food, housing requirement, and their temperature, and their association with other pets. Centering your care for raccoons around their basic needs and desires will make training easy and achievable. To make taming and training a raccoon easy for you, we have some recommended techniques you can explore:
1. Get a young Raccoon: The first step to taming a raccoon is to get one that’s young; young raccoons are easy to tame and train; you can take advantage of their inexperience in the wildlife to train it into a pet you can have around your home. The younger the raccoon the more easier it becomes to tame and train.
2. Get their trust: Taming and training an animal of wild experience like a raccoon requires great trust. This starts with spending quality time with them, voluntary feeding, and sheltering. One sure path to gain the trust of raccoons I have heard from wildlife journalists is watching the raccoons eat around you as you feed them treats. Any abrupt movement the raccoon eats from you can make it feel threatened and flee. Gaining the trust of young raccoons is easier and faster than that of older raccoons.
3. Feeding the raccoon: The next step is to start feeding your raccoon; start with organic cat food that contains protein ingredients like fish and chicken. Feeding the raccoon in a pet feeder and drinker every day will make it accustomed to a new way of life. That way, you can control what it eats and how it eats. Mind you, you need to be very patient with your raccoon when training on how and where to eat; it may take about two weeks of consistent training before the raccoon will start accepting food from you without hesitation or fear.
4. Show Authority: You need to slowly introduce yourself as an authority figure to the raccoon; you should start by giving simple commands like “Sit” or “Stay” Then reward them with treats when they follow through by sitting down or staying still while waiting patiently for their next command. The moment the raccoon starts giving positive responses to your commands, you should know you have done a great job with the training.
5. Mental stimulation: You can easily pick the raccoons from the wild, it may not be easy to remove the wildness from the raccoons. Raccoons like to climb and explore and are not suited for cages or small rooms. While you are making conscious efforts to rehabilitate the raccoons, you should make provisions for things to keep them busy when they are not eating. Provide your raccoons toys for mental stimulation; playing with toys makes them do away with their innate sense of wildness. Slowly and steadily, your raccoons will adapt to the new environment.
Below is a video showing how to pet a tamed wild raccoon for better comprehension.
Raccoon Behavior and Temperament
Raccoons are found in North America, Asia, Europe, and parts of Africa; they are naturally intelligent and inquisitive. Raccoons are highly adaptable animals; they live in urban areas where they are in close proximity to humans. Raccoons have a bad reputation for being destructive and loud. Raccoon’s temper can be unpredictable and violent. Raccoons are aggressive and have sharp teeth; they can bite or scratch you if they feel threatened.
Raccoons are omnivores; they eat almost anything, including insects, fish, plant matters, nuts, seeds, and human foods. They love to eat garbage too. In the wild, raccoons will drink from puddles when they’re available; they’re also excellent swimmers, they can hunt and drink from different water bodies.
Raccoons are nocturnal animals, they are usually active at night. It is possible you see raccoons during the day, this happens when they are threatened in their sleeping area and trying to look out for another safe place. Raccoons live in abandoned buildings or attics if they can find them. They also make their own dens by digging holes in the ground or building tree houses out of sticks and leaves.
Diseases Raccoons Can Transmit
Raccoons can carry different diseases; these diseases can be transmitted to humans when they bite or scratch when they feel threatened, so you need to be careful when handling raccoons: Some of these diseases are:
1) Rabies: If you are going to keep a raccoon as a pet, it must be vaccinated for rabies. Rabies is a virus that affects the brain and spinal cord and is usually transmitted by a bite from a raccoon. It causes an acute infection that affects both animals and humans. The symptoms include excessive salivation, difficulty swallowing, fatigue, and paralysis of the muscles used for movement along with hydrophobia (fear of water). Rabies is almost always fatal if left untreated.
2) Leptospirosis: Leptospirosis is caused by bacteria called leptospira spirochetes which are shed by raccoons and other animals like rats, dogs, or horses. This disease spreads primarily through water contaminated with urine from raccoons or through runoff after heavy rains or flooding conditions where there has been raccoon fecal contamination over an extended period of time.
3) Raccoon Roundworm: Also known as Baylisascaris procyonis, the Raccoon roundworm can cause serious damage to the brain and eyes of humans if it’s not treated quickly enough. It’s most commonly found in young children who have been exposed to soil contaminated by raccoon feces or adults who handle infected raccoons without gloves or other protective equipment. The good news is that Raccoon roundworm is easily treatable with medication when caught early enough.
4) Distemper: Distemper is another serious disease that can be passed between raccoons, dogs, and cats. It is highly contagious and usually fatal if not treated quickly enough. As you plan to adopt a raccoon as a pet, try to give a distemper vaccine when due.
Pet Raccoon Legal States
Out of the 50 states in the United States, owning a pet raccoon is legal in only 19 states according to the World Population Review, that’s less than 50 percent of the entire states in the United States. Other states have laws against keeping a pet raccoon because of the threat of rabies and other associated health and social issues.
You can own a pet raccoon in any of the following states: Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. These states require specific requirements for owning a pet raccoon, such as vaccination requirements or enclosure specifications.
Licensing and permits are required before bringing a pet raccoon to any of these states. You can get the permit at the Wildlife Resources Permit, call 919-528-3374 for more inquiry. And if you intend to import a raccoon, you need an additional permit from NCDA.
Lastly, Not all states in the United States allow someone to have raccoons as pets; you can keep a pet raccoon only if you live in any of the 19 states mentioned above, so do not forget to check your state’s law. If you’re unsure of what laws are in your state, contact your state’s animal welfare department. Perhaps the law favors you, make sure you follow the regulations to protect yourself and your family from any possible harm raccoons can cause when inhabited in your home.