Seventeen Days

To my surprise, I got home from transport tonight in time to write a bit. This post is a milestone for me, one I knew was coming yet somehow never quite believed would happen. I said goodbye to my housemate and very dear friend today, hopefully not forever, but at least while I’m in Europe. I had no choice. I could not leave her here without me.

Most of my Steem friends know I’ve shared my home with a wild raccoon for the past five years. But I haven’t been able to write freely about it due to fear that game officials would kill her. It is not legal in my state to harbor wildlife, especially a rabies vector species like raccoons. There are no rescue or relocation options for these animals in Southwest Virginia. I had two choices: I could accomodate Her Highness and keep it a secret, or I could have her destroyed. The latter was absolutely not an option for me.

Glory could come and go as she pleased. She was not caged. However, she stayed more often than she left, took great offense to windows and doors that impeded her way into the house, and as a result destroyed nearly all of them. The only windows I have left with screens are the ones too high above the ground for her to reach. The doors--well, we won’t even talk about the doors. You can see in the video below just how good she was at defeating them.

Thanks to some rehab and veterinary connections out of state, I was able to get Glory vaccinated not only for rabies, but for cat and dog diseases like distemper and parvo. She was also rigorously and routinely dewormed as per veterinary protocol for baylisascaris procyonis, the very dangerous roundworm that many raccoons carry. Wildlife officials are programmed to tell you that rabies vaccines are not proven to work on raccoons. This is hogwash. Antibody titers prove otherwise. However, vaccine manufacturers do not test domestic animal vaccines on wild animals in the lab, so they can’t document their efficacy to the FDA. It's just red tape. Raccoons vaccinated against rabies are just as safe to be around as vaccinated cats and dogs, political b.s. aside.

Many of my Steem friends also know I place great confidence in a New Jersey animal communicator who has stunned me time and again with very precise and accurate “readings.” Tracey Korotky’s first conversation with Glory resulted in a description of my home through a raccoon’s eyes that was spot-on. There is no way Tracey could have known beforehand the details she says Glory told her. The purpose of that first session was to determine whether or not Glory was happy in her semi-domesticated state (the answer was a resounding “heck yes I am,”) and if she could successfully be returned to the wild. (That answer was a definite no. “Those other raccoons out there are barbarians. I want nothing to do with life in a tree.”)

During that session, Tracey also spoke with my ESA dog Paige. Paige related to her events leading up to her impoundment at a local shelter that dovetailed exactly with the information given to me by the ACOs who performed her intake. There is no way Tracey could have known any of this through “natural” means. Later, Paige had additional sessions with Tracey about her work as an ESA (Emotional Support Animal) and about the unexpected death of her best friend Abercrombie. I saw noticeable differences in the behaviors of both Glory and Paige after their sessions with Tracey. Glory stopped arguing with me daily about a part of the house that was off limits to her , presumably because she now understood why it was off limits, and Paige took another step forward through the the grieving process and finally showed signs of moving on.

Last night Tracey spoke with Glory about life in a raccoon sanctuary that I found for her. Apparently this came as quite a shock for Glory, who knew something was happening but never guessed she was being uprooted. While Tracey spoke with us over the speakerphone, Glory paced and fretted and literally tried to climb the wall. Tracey said she could intuitively feel that Glory’s stomach was in knots. But she began to explain that Glory would have other raccoon friends to meet and get to know, that she would get a pool of water with fish to play with and eat, and that I would be able to visit her. I sat across the room and watched Glory go from being absolutely and inexplicably frantic (inexplicable other than the obvious reason, that Tracey was communicating with her news she didn’t want to hear) to collapsing on her side and waving one back foot in the air. It was during this time that Tracey said she started to calm down and talk it through.

“So I think this lady who’s house I’m going to has raccoon energy.”
“So maybe there will be other smart raccoons there, not like the forest raccoons who aren't as civilized as me.”
“I’m sure I’ll have a hard time at first.”
“What will I eat?”
“The fish sound really fun.”
“I think I might like to climb a tree.”
“This might be okay.”

Before each session, Tracey asks for a photo of each animal that is as recent as possible. Earlier that afternoon, I’d snapped some pictures of Glory, Paige, my alpha dog Milo, and the little dog named Tori who’s being adopted by @michelios. I’ll let Michel blog about the things Tori had to say if he wants. Apparently she adores him and knows she is going to see him again soon.

But Milo--yeah. So here’s where it gets wild. He’s the one who came forward with accurate information last night that, for me, validated the entire session, including the parts nobody could prove.

Milo is the strong silent type. He’s never once spoken up to Tracey while she had my household on the line. But he made up for it last night. He told her exactly why he thinks he should be flying to Europe with us instead of left in foster care--he has a mission to mentor Tori, who is a young soul and needs him. This is one of his jobs, and getting left behind will devastate him. He went on to describe in great detail the pack structure of the entire household, including which dogs lived where, how they behave, how many big ones, how many small ones, literally everything about every dog in this house except their names. Except...he has his own names for them, including “The Basement Dogs” and “The Second Level Dogs.” He was exactly right about all of it.

Tracey had no way to know certain dogs here in rescue live in the basement. Or that they live there and not upstairs because they are unruly and wild. But she sure knew it after speaking with Milo for a few minutes. Explain that one, skeptics. A head count and behavior profiles, described from the viewpoint of a dog who feels it’s his duty to understand pack heirarchy and maintain it--detailed like a military roster right down to the fact that the “little one” hurts all the time.

Pictured above: the “little one,” Roxie, who indeed is a senior chi with arthritis.

The information Milo shared with Tracey is not published online or anywhere else. There is no account she could have hacked to discover it. To me, the odds of her doing something like that seem even greater than the possibility that she really can connect to the hearts and minds of animals and extrapolate rational data from that energy.

After the session with Tracey ended, Glory did something she has never done. She climbed the back of my recliner and stretched herself out across the headrest, and lay there next to me for over an hour. Don’t get me wrong--Glory has always been affectionate with me and allows me to touch her. But this was different. This was goodbye. Check back later for tomorrow’s post, and I’ll tell you how things went at the sanctuary.

Other Posts in this Series (because this one won't make sense if you haven't read the other ones)

Forty Days
Thirty-Nine Days
Thirty-Eight Days
Thirty-Seven Days
Thirty-Six Days
Thirty-Five Days
Thirty-Three Days
Thirty-Two Days
Thirty-One Days
Thirty Days
Twenty-Seven Days
Twenty-Six Days
Twenty-Five Days
Twenty-Three Days
Twenty Days
Eighteen Days