Why haven’t you guys domesticated raccoons?

25 comments

1. They’re far too clever.

2. I have two Dachshunds-they’re close enough to having two domesticated racoons

3. Their behavior is not conducive to domestication. Some people do have them as pets. Those people tend to have recurring damage to their property.

4. Because were lazy degenerates who would rather sit on our asses than get up and fulfill our National mission: to domesticate the raccoon

5. Some animals just don’t make good pets, I think and racoons definitely fall into that “terrible pet” category.

6. They’re evil creatures

7. This has been attempted before. Unlike cats and dogs, they never really develop a bond with their human master. Even after trying to breed for social traits, they either wander off for a new home or keep biting people. They will also destroy your house.

   As a kid, my dad’s family had a “pet” racoon. It was trained to use a litter box and sat at the table for dinner. Family photos show it being cute as hell with his little hands opening containers or sorting small items. They had it for about a year before it attacked grandma and tore up the house.

   They are wild animals.

8. Imagine having a child and that child turns two years old…and stays that way forever.

9. They are NOT cuddly, believe me. They’ll hiss at you if you even look at them funny.

10. Because they’re mean, fiendishly intelligent, little bastards.

11. I *envy* the fact that you people only ever have to deal with raccoons through a computer screen.

    Seriously. They suck, they are most definitely *not* cuddly, and it’s the ones with no fear of people that you really need to be worried about. They’re rabies riddled pest animals that kill pets, poultry, and destroy property.

12. They don’t run away from humans because they will exert 100% of their energy to fuck you up over a crumb of stale McDonald’s chicken. They would fight God over a soggy bagel.

13. It’s very very very hard to domesticate solitary animals. Pack animals are easy, they are inherently social and want to follow rules in order to be part of your social order. Solitary creatures don’t give a shit about anything but themselves and maybe their own offspring.

    Also they have human-like hands so they can open anything you can. This makes them very very hard to contain.

    Lastly they are natural carriers of a parasite bacteria that tends to make humans and dogs very very ill, so you really don’t want their waste in your house.

14. There’s a truth behind the cliche “ he’s crazier than a pet coon”

15. Have you seen a raccoon’s claws? My tiny cat’s claws hurt when she accidentally scratches me. A raccoon accidentally scratching you could send you to the ER.

16. They’re fairly clever and tenacious scavengers and all-around chaos generators. It’s difficult enough to keep them out of trash cans (hence the nickname “trash pandas”). It would be impossible to keep one in the house without significant property destruction.

    The Pawnee Parks and Rec had the right idea: https://parksandrecreation.fandom.com/wiki/Pawnee_Parks_Department_Most_Wanted_Pests_List

17. President Coolidge had a pet raccoon at the White House, it was known to terrorize staff by running around and biting their ankles.

18. Because they’re assholes and pretty clever

19. You know how we’ve domesticated dogs over millennia, but you still get specimens like your aunt’s crazy-ass chihuahua who simply cannot be tamed?

    Now, imagine that chihuahua has hands instead of paws.

20. “Trash Pandas” as we call them, are as destructive and vicious as they are cute. My friend just sent me a webcam video of a Coyote attacking a raccoon. The raccoon won.

21. Because they are hell. Just literally devilish little creatures. You domesticate them then wonder why they’ve figured out how to steal your car.

22. For the same reason you don’t keep badgers as pets in the UK.

23. The same reason you don’t domesticate badgers.

24. A 30 lb. feral cat with lock-picking skills whose default setting is fuck you, is why.

25. We had a trash panda chew a hole through our wood roof, shimmy down in between the walls and drop out onto a shelf with thousands of dollars worth of alcohol on it. He broke the shelf and every last bottle. Then crawled into the floor joist trapping himself. He didn’t want to come out friendly like so he met Mr. .22 and had a date with the coyotes near the wood line.