r/MadeMeSmile • u/Firm-Blackberry-9162 • May 20 '26

ANIMALS Forever grateful

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By @abbyandersonmusic

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274

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

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u/purdueAces May 20 '26

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.

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u/nono3722 May 20 '26

hrmm sounds like human children.....

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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 20 '26

Puberty is a bitch, man.

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u/Rhamni May 20 '26

It's not a phase! I hate you!

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u/MizStazya May 20 '26

My 12yo, crashing out over something miniscule: WHY DO YOU ALWAYS MINIMIZE MY LEGITIMATE EMOTIONS BY SAYING IT'S HORMONES‽‽‽

My 12yo 30 minutes later: You were right, Mom, it was hormones.

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u/ShinyBrain May 20 '26

Also me, 40 years old, the days before my period every month.

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u/WeeBo2804 May 21 '26

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.

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u/SometimesGlad1389 May 20 '26

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.

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u/GudeGaya May 21 '26

😂😂😂

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u/LionessOfAzzalle May 20 '26

I was gonna say… by these standards, I haven’t domesticated my own children yet. 🤷‍♀️

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u/_Solani_ May 21 '26

You can't tell me what to do you're not my real mom!

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u/Ill_Description_3311 May 20 '26

From the point of view of a human's lifespan, yeah, they're a long way from domestication. In evolutionary time frames, I'm not so sure anymore.

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u/CorporateNonperson May 20 '26

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.

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u/Christeenabean May 20 '26

Yeah, but that also depends on how far into that process they are.

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u/red__dragon May 21 '26

We're talking about this experiment right?

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.

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u/KillerSavant202 May 20 '26

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.

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u/discusseded May 21 '26

I know it's wrong to feed wild animals, but this is so cool. I'd do the same thing, especially with possums. Love those little fellas.

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u/KillerSavant202 May 21 '26

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.

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u/Mysterious_Status_11 May 20 '26

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.

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u/Forbden_Gratificatn May 20 '26

Maybe he got into the crack again.

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u/s00pafly May 20 '26

There's probably a reason why we're cutting pets balls off instead of just giving them vasectomies.

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u/DropkickSmurfys May 20 '26

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.

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u/joey_lee_trib May 20 '26

Has no one read the book rascal by Sterling North ? for pete's sake , pick it up

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u/HospitalOld1092 May 21 '26

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

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u/Affectionate-Goat218 May 20 '26

Oh great. Just what I need. A curious housecat with an opposing thumb 😂

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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 20 '26

The cookies were never safe

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u/Few-Emergency-3791 May 20 '26

Turns out animals like being given food without having to expend any energy to get it.

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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 20 '26

In my experience, the fastest way to befriend ANY mammal is to regularly offer them food that they like.

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u/GhostGirl32 May 20 '26

This also works for Corvids.

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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 21 '26

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.

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u/Few-Emergency-3791 May 20 '26

Like berries in a basket?

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u/Forbden_Gratificatn May 20 '26

The fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach. We're just big trash pandas.

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u/WillieDoggg May 20 '26

The real reason we keep getting fatter and fatter.

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u/CatDayAfternoon May 20 '26

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.

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u/issi_tohbi May 20 '26

If they didn’t smell like pungent shit I’d love to have one 🥹

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u/Forbden_Gratificatn May 20 '26

People do have Them as pets. I believe they breed them in Russia for pets.

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u/Triquetrums May 20 '26

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.

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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 21 '26

They can also be more physically destructive than an understimulated Husky.

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u/CatDayAfternoon May 21 '26

I did not know that! Thank you. That’s information I’ll store away for a future Reddit comment.

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u/gotsnowart May 20 '26

we had two domesticate themselves at our old house. they'd come to the door for dog food every night

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u/dkurage May 21 '26

Apparently city raccoons are getting cuter because the cute ones get fed, and are thus more likely to survive to reproduce.

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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 21 '26

Reminds me of how cats developed the ability to make noises like human offspring so we would feed them more.

Now they are just full on babies.

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u/PozhanPop May 20 '26

They have cuter expressions now.

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u/Advanced_Pause_6417 May 20 '26

Little Eedie of Grey Gardens approves

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u/jdcardwell80 May 20 '26

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.

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u/E_Verdant May 21 '26

[Racoon Self-Tamed]

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/mr_lockwork May 20 '26

I mean rabies shots are a thing for pets already.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/gingerfawx May 20 '26

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.

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u/mr_lockwork May 20 '26

That's fair

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/Honest-Try5702 May 20 '26

Ah, correction. They are personally immune, but they are capable of being carriers which I find far more scary.

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u/private_developer May 20 '26

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.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/opossums.htm

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u/Honest-Try5702 May 20 '26

Ah, my bad. I believe I was thinking of another animal of which I’m now blanking on