Mr. Wonderful & the Baby Raccoon in my Driveway

As Chris and I were loading the kiddies up to go take care of Dad this morning, Chris said, "Hey, look! There's a baby raccoon!" Sure enough, shrunk into the side of the driveway was an adorable baby raccoon that made some weird chirping noises. Chris started to leave and said that it was calling for it's mother, it should be fine, but I started getting really worried that one of the local neighborhood dogs would discover it before it's mama.

So, my husband became Mr. Wonderful and called our friend Clark, who's a Fish & Game Warden and asked him what to do. He said that raccoons are a dime a dozen, and since it's Labor Day, no clinic is open so just drop it off at the riverbank near Bear World (the Snake River goes by there). Well, the previous owner of our home left a portable dog kennel so Mr. Wonderful dawned his work gloves that normally were used to weed and prune and grabbed the baby raccoon by the scruff of it's neck (which is what the game warden told him to do) and we stuck the spitting and barking raccoon in the back of the Highlander.

As we were driving, I started to get teary-eyed, then began to cry that continued into a sob. Mr. Wonderful took my hand and talked about how the raccoon was a wild animal and is meant to be in the wild and that we were doing what we were suppose to do. I agreed with him to an extent, but I kept saying, "It's only a baby!" which would then make me start to cry all over again. Seth was pretty confused as to why I was crying (Eliza was asleep nearly the whole time) so Mr. Wonderful offered to drive over to Bear World and see if they could take the little baby animal until it got bigger. Well, after stopping in their office and being told that they don't do that sort of thing (which makes sense), he then drove to the Lorenzo boat dock between Bear World and the river. I got out with some dog food that I grabbed from my parent's house, then sprinkled it on the ground. Chris followed with the baby raccoon in the kennel and took it out. It looked even more small and helpless in the wilderness, which made me start to bawl again. Mr. Wonderful gave me a hug and said that we did what we needed to do for the animal and he promised that it will be fine. He then told me that I was stressing Seth out, so I took a deep breath and begin to calm down.

All I can say is that I've watched too many animal cartoons that humanize wild animals. Curse you Disney!