Community Chat

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In the commercial a woman calls her cat in for the night and doesn't realize it's a raccoon and not her cat. Well, it actually happened.

http://gothamist.com/2014/08/25/raccoon_or_cat.php

Woman Bit By Raccoon After Mistaking It For Her Cat

Proving once again that raccoons truly are nature's a--h---s, an elderly Connecticut woman was bit when she mistook one such furry demon, who had wandered into her home, for her cat.

The 88-year-old victim heard her pet asking to come in around 11 p.m. yesterday, but when she opened the door, she had no idea it wasn't alone—unbeknownst to her, the stealthy trespasser also slithered its way inside. Thinking the fluffy creature sniffing around belonged to her, she went to pet it, but quickly realized her mistake when it wrapped its nasty teeth around her elbow, hand, forearm, lip and chin, the Hartford Courant reports.

The vile beast also charged at the two officers who arrived at the scene. The woman was hospitalized, treated and released. The raccoon was then euthanized, because this is what happens when you bite a stranger in the face. (Unless you do it on the GW bridge.)

[sylviahomeatlast]

I like raccoons

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They are cute from afar. Up close and they are terrors. lol

[Mominohio]

That is just horrible. And living in the country where it is very dark at night, and having cats to let in, I can see how this could happen to someone. I hope she will be OK. Raccoon are not to be messed with, even though some enjoy watching them, they can be very destructive, and very sick and dangerous.

[LyndaGee]

When we first moved here, I used to leave food for them at night. They were very cute, and would sometimes do little acrobatic tricks on the porch railings. But, then one of them started coming out in the daytime. I was told that is a big no-no, so I stopped.

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On 8/25/2014 mominohio said:

That is just horrible. And living in the country where it is very dark at night, and having cats to let in, I can see how this could happen to someone. I hope she will be OK. Raccoon are not to be messed with, even though some enjoy watching them, they can be very destructive, and very sick and dangerous.

The poor woman looked pretty beat up. I've been charged by raccoons and it was frightening. I can't imagine how horrifying it was to be unexpectedly attacked by an angry animal.

[brii]

I am no raccoon lover by any stretch. They are vile

[mewsmomtoo]

That poor woman - that must have been terrifying and very painful. I hope she recovers OK. I guess since they have the raccoon, they can test it for rabies so she wont have to go through the shots.

[pommom]

When I worked at a library, I checked out a documentary on raccoons - I think it was entitled Raccoon Nation.

They are very intelligent critters. They work the neighborhoods and look/wait for signals when people inside dwellings have gone to sleep. They can twist open anything. Lift heavy trash bin lids, scale walls - well, just about anything you can imagine.

A raccoon and her litter (is it called this?) made a garage their home. One of the little ones fell and couldn't get back up a tall fence. The dog was in the yard and was leery of it so kept its distance. The mother raccoon noticed her offspring was on the ground, scaled the fence and taught it to follow her back up. It took quite a few tries, but the mother raccoon kept going down and scaling the fence until her baby got back home. When it reached the hole in the garage, she had to push his bottom over the edge. Yes, it was a cute scene, but only goes to prove that they are tenacious, determined and relentless.

It is a very interesting documentary. There are groups of raccoons who claim their territory and they do not trespass.

[Kachina624]

I had a raccoon for a pet once. They are extremely smart, more so than a dog and can manipulate their paws almost like fingers. They have very sharp teeth and would tear up a dog or cat. They play like a cat, being attracted by movement they can pounce on. The one we had like to chew up my shoes. No matter how often we bathed him. He smelled very bad. Wild animals should be left in the wild.