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Sweet Raccoon Still Visits Woman Who Saved Him 3 Years Ago

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  • A raccoon that had nowhere to go was taken in by a woman and her mom.
  • Because the woman worked full time, her mom cared for the raccoon, feeding her through a bottle.
  • Despite living in the wild now, the raccoon still visits her mom for a snuggle. 

Little Hands was only a few weeks old when he was discovered on the side of the road by himself. 

It was the early days of June, and all of the local wildlife rescues and rehabilitators were already full.

Nikki Robinson, a worker for wildlife rehabilitation, told The Dodo:

“When you ask what you should do with [an orphaned raccoon], they say, ‘Leave it alone and let nature take its course,’ or ‘You can take it to a vet and they will have to euthanize it.’ That broke my heart. I couldn’t let that happen!”

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While Robinson worked full-time, her mother, Linda, was semi-retired and could bottle-feed a baby up to five times each day. Linda reluctantly became Little Hands’ mother when Robinson stated that grandkids were not coming soon. 

According to Robinson, the first time Linda bottle-fed Little Hands, he looked up at her, and Linda just kind of melted.

“She treated him very sweetly early on because they like to be touched a lot. So she created a bond with him, even knowing he’d go back to the wild at some point.”

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Little Hands gained strength, and by the time summer ended, he was ready to do things alone.

“They get a soft release and go out on her property and live under the deck for a bit, and she’ll leave food out until they wander off and find their own way,” Robinson shared. “But Little Hands remained friendly with the whole family and he was very kind and sweet with us.”

Robinson shared that when her mom is on the porch swing, Little Hands would crawl onto the swing and sit beside her, wanting his butt and chin to be scratched. “He wanted his snuggles, then he’d have his food and wander off.”

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Little Hands has been living in the wild for three years, yet he still returns to Linda’s house just to cuddle with his mother. Linda has taken in a slew of orphaned and abandoned raccoon babies after Little Hands left the house. And the raccoons she releases into the wild return every year.

Robinson shared that her mom sits outside every day and waits.

“Even when they’re grown up, they’ll visit her and she just lights up and she just loves it. They love her, too — she’s just Mom.”

Linda has made it possible for the little raccoons to live in the wild, but they, like her human children, know they can always come home to Mom for some snack and a snuggle.

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Source: The Dodo

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