I had rescued a baby racoon, his name was coony( how original) and he lived to be about 8-9 yrs old. He went on family vacations with us and had the run of the house most of the time. I found him when he was about a week old, under a tree he'd probably fallen out of. We did have him checked by the vet and watched for 2 weeks for rabies and he passed with flying colors. Coony was a very sweet lovable racoon, and was always on my lap.

When we had our cabin out in the country, there wasnt a basement under our bathroom, just a crawl space. I could hear a mother racoon under the floor, and she had babies under there also. There wasnt anyway to get them out of there, so all we could do was wait for them to leave and block fix where she had gotten in. Well I started to notice I didnt hear the mother under there for a couple of days, and the babies were getting upset and loud, because they were starving(I found mama soon after dead on the road, hit by a car). There was a cupboard under the bathroom sink where the pipes went down into the crawl space. Pretty soon there were little baby racoon paws reaching up through the pipe hole(about a half inch around) I knew they were starving and didnt want them to die under there, so I put corn curls and catfood down the hole. And I put the food outside of the hole of the cabin foundation where they had gotten in. This took about 2 weeks but I finally coaxed them out!

It is a sad thing to listen and know an animal is starving or suffering, and when there is no wild life rescue or even a humane society in the area(they WONT help around here if it's not in their county!) You do what you can. It is wise to be careful of rabies with every animal you dont know! I was bitten by a mouse when I was 5 yrs old and the mouse head and I went to the University Hospital for rabies shots, and that was 35 yrs ago when they were given in the stomach! OUCH!!!!