Ronny's New Love and Goodbye--

By the middle of summer, Ronny was doing beautifully with weight, appetite, and personality. He was definitely coming into his own personality.

His favorite food was still Kibbles and Bits but his new loves were red grapes and Chips Ahoy cookies.

There had come a day, or rather I should say a night, where Ronny wouldn't be put away in his cage, no matter what the bribe. So, he was a big boy now, and I figured, it's time. He's old enough to stay in the trees if he chooses.

Well, he just had to choose the largest tree we had and the scariest to climb down. Several times after dark we took the blue Chips Ahoy bag and stood under the tree shaking it and calling for him. With the aid of the flashlight we could tell where he was, but the look on his face said two things: I'm having a great time up here and I'm not budging, and oh, yes. Cookies! But he stuck by his first resolution and that was to stay in the tree all night, alone. Finally, about midnight, we gave up and left him alone. We had a terrible summer storm that night. Heavy rain, thunder and lightning. I was worried sick the whole night. His cage was outside my bedroom window and I listened for him all night. But to no avail.

The next morning I checked the tree and there he was. A little wet, a little frightened, and very eager to come down. I shook the cookie bag and he started down headfirst. I think that was a mistake on our part for not teaching him which way to come down from a monster tree. He'd get about halfway and stop, whimper, and then go back up. I'd shake the bag and call some more. Finally, after a few more tries, he got to that crucial curve in the tree, and as though he'd known all along that headfirst was wrong, he turned himself around and exited feet first. As soon as his feet hit the ground he lumbered over to me and up into my arms. Eating cookies as fast as I could pull them from the bag.

That was the turning point in Ronny's life. He never went back in his cage. He slept in the trees or on top of his cage, and although it worried us, he was always there at the door come morning—ready for his Kibbles and Bits.

I had to leave him alone one day. Which meant I was gone for hours and he couldn’t find me. My reward for leaving him was a torn open back screened door and a raccoon curled up between the doors with a silly, "It's me!" grin on his sly little face.

One other time he tore open the front screen door from the top and climbed down between the doors and took a nap. Needless to say, I had to rescreen both doors.

Hubby's job was coming to a close. The campground had found a replacement for him, and me, and we needed to move into town. We found a house and started packing. It was sad because instead of going out and playing with Ronny, I had to teach him to follow me to the woods.

Due to a camera operator malfunction, I had lost a whole roll of pictures on my camera—all the last pictures of my now forty-pound furball with hands and teeth. So you'll have to imagine a very large, very heavy raccoon in my arms with his little hands wrapped around my neck. That was the one thing I couldn't get enough of, Ronny hugs, and playing with his tiny little fingers. They were so soft, so delicate, and, at times, very imploring. He still squawked like a baby when things didn't go his way. Especially as he got to be a hefty lump. But he was a good boy. Not once did he snarl or hiss, or try to take a bite of any of us. Total trust between both species. After all, we and the cats were his best buddies, his family.

So now I spent the last week we had at the country house taking Ronny for walks in the woods, showing him the stream, rotted logs, and stones to turn over. When he was younger we had carried him to the woods and tried to show him things, but he didn't want to eat anything that crawled or swam. That worried me a little then. I wanted him to be able to find food on his own, but he didn't seem to care. Now that he was older he seemed more interested to rummage through the leaf litter and dabble in the stream. Yet each time we went on our foraging trips, he'd follow me back to the deck and ate his bowl of Kibbles and Bits, maybe have a few grapes, and always a handful of Chips Ahoy.

I was running out of time. I had to leave in two days. The house would be empty and there would be no one there to feed him—take him in their arms and get "Ronny hugs." There was no rescue help among old-time farm-ville. He was just a pesky raccoon. So this had to work or not. There wasn't anything else I could do.

We had gone for our usual walk that afternoon and he dutifully followed me into the depths of the woods. I sat with him by the stream, talked to him, while he rooted around turning things over. Then I stood up and started back, he followed of course, but then when we got to the edge of the woods this time, he stopped.

I turned, said goodbye, then went on. He stayed where he was for a few moments more then turned and disappeared into the high grass and bramble at the edge of the woods. That night I left his bowl on the deck. It was untouched by morning. The next night I did the same. Still untouched. I dared not go back to the woods to check on him. He had made the choice on his own. It was as if he knew we were leaving and he couldn't go. As if he knew, he was finally big enough and strong enough that he could live without Kibbles and Bits and Chips Ahoy.

I knew he knew where home was, but even after I had spent my final day there, and checked back with people from the campground from time to time, he had never, to anyone's knowledge, returned to the house. Ever pray for an animal to make it on his own? I did. And often.

You can imagine that it did my heart good the following spring to learn that Ronny had made the transition. He had conquered the winter snows, was thriving and often visited a couple of picnic tables at the far reaches of the campground for a handout. At the same time, that was a worrisome bit of knowledge. Ronny wasn't afraid of humans, and if anything happened to him because of no fear, I'd have been guilty of a terrible crime. Letting a wild thing bond with you is something we all do when we come across a motherless little beast. We naturally want to raise it up. Love it and have it love us back.

Would I do it again? I'd have to think about it for about thirty-seconds, but I'd still take that, tiny, orphaned, baby raccoon up in my arms and do what I did for Ronny all over again. Only I'd know a few things about raising a raccoon this time.

To this day I like to think that Ronny had matured and had found a girlfriend. That somewhere out there, there were bunches of little Ronny's running about in the trees and lumbering through the campground at night, looking for mischief.

Ronny Raccoon

Spring and summer of 1993

Note: Now that I've introduced Ronny to you, from time to time, I will write short stories about his side of the story from the time he chose to return to the wild.