Raccoon Rescue

Well, I was a little busy last week rescuing one of the raccoons that comes to my backyard to eat. On Friday night, I'd noticed that she was limping very badly; she could hardly walk and at one point she curled up next to the food bowl and for a bit I thought she had died or was dying. But about an hour later I checked again and she was eating and then limped off. I borrowed a trap from NBCR and on Sunday night I stayed up all night hoping to catch her, but the only ones that showed up were a larger raccoon and the opossum. So I went to bed at 6AM and got up at 11 to try and find a vet that would treat her and a rehabilitator to care for her. I made calls most of the day but none of the rehabilitators returned my call. The vet I found was leaving at noon on Tuesday taking his kids somewhere for Spring Break. So I had a very narrow window in which I could get her treated. So Monday night I stayed up again and finally caught her about 4:30AM. I worried that the other raccoon or opossum would try and hurt her - she was almost too big for the trap and couldn't move - so I fretted about what to do. I finally decided to sleep on the couch with the window open so I could hear if anything went amiss. So after 2 and a half hours of sleep, I was up taking her to the vet. Besides a dislocated front paw, she had numerous wounds; she'd been attacked by something. The Doc cleaned her up, but couldn't put a splint on because in his experience, the wild animals do not tolerate splints like cats and dogs. The next problem in my raccoon rescue saga was that the vet had put her in a larger cage (the trap was too small to keep her in) and it would not fit in my car. So I had to wait until 4:30PM to call my friend Ruth - she works nights and is up by 4:30 - to see if she could help me out with her SUV. We made it to the vet with about a minute to spare before they closed, but finally got her home. She stayed in the garage until Wednesday when I could take her to the rehabilitator, luckily she fit in the other car. So she is recovering with a licensed rehabilitator and in a couple of weeks he will call me and we will release her back into our greenbelt. So here is a picture I took of her Sunday night, eating on the back porch, with Newman watching through the glass in the door.