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Posted on 06/11/2026 6:17:33 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
They're undeniably cute, but they'd also be a pretty annoying pet.
Last fall, a study of raccoons found that these city-dwelling trash pandas are beginning to look different than their rural cousins in the U.S.—they appear to be domesticating themselves.
It wouldn’t be the first time a wild animal species manipulated humanity for its own benefit. Dogs did it at least 14,000 years ago, discovering that befriending garbage-producing humans resulted in tastier, more abundant scraps and less arduous lives on their own. New genetic data indicates that cats feeding off the abundant rodents plundering human food stores domesticated themselves for similar reasons around 10,000 years ago.
Dogs and cats hanging around worked out pretty well for humans, too. The first dogs served as early-warning systems, protectors, and hunting buddies. Cats, on the other hand, helped keep food fresher and reduced the spread of disease. Over time, through a combination of natural selection and human intervention, they evolved into the cute and cuddly companion animals of today.
Could urban raccoons be headed down the same evolutionary path straight into the American home?
Raccoons as pets
With their expressive masked faces and dexterous little fingers, pet raccoons are already found en masse on social media: sleeping in open dresser drawers and picking Fruit Loops out of cereal bowls. But the algorithm only shows one side of what Lauren Stanton, postdoctoral fellow at the Schell Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, describes as “very active and intelligent animals with complex needs.”
Problem number one? Raccoons are nocturnal. They sleep in tight spaces during the day and venture out at dusk to forage, hunt, explore, and socialize across vast territories that can stretch as many as three square miles. And they don’t do it quietly. Raccoons have all sorts of vocalizations: purrs, chirps, hisses, and straight-up screams. A hollering, busybody raccoon does not a good night’s sleep make.
And then there are those paws which, despite a lack of opposable thumbs, are remarkably agile. A pet raccoon would be able to untie knots, unlatch locks, unscrew jars of food, and open doors in the middle of the night to let their wild compatriots in for raucous, sexy parties during mating season.
As highly-opportunistic omnivores, raccoons hunt insects, aquatic animals, small mammals, and birds. They also scavenge just about anything they can find. Not only would the food in fridges and cabinets fall victim to their nightly raids, they could never be trusted around a gerbil or bird cage—and god forbid there’s a fish tank around.
Nor would they discriminate about the water chosen for dipping their food, a common behavior which increases paw sensitivity while eating. Toilet bowl, sink full of dirty dishes, or that poor, beleaguered fish tank—it’s all the same to them.
Altogether, this web of destructive, innate behaviors is one that not even ongoing domestication would be likely to ever make compatible with the human home—not that people are likely to stop trying.
“I have talked to many people over the years who have attempted to own raccoons, and their story often ends the same: The raccoon got too difficult to manage and so they ‘released it back to the wild,’” says Stanton, a deadly problem for human-raised raccoons that never learned essential survival skills.
Domestication vs. Domesticated
The evolutionary path of virtually every domesticated animal has undergone “domestication syndrome”—a pattern of physical changes seen across diverse species that includes the development of floppier ears, flatter and rounder faces, and curlier tails over time.
A 2025 study of the snout-to-skull-length ratio of close to 20,000 images of American raccoons posted on the citizen science platform iNaturalist found the snouts of urban raccoons were 3.56 percent shorter than those of rural raccoons—possibly an early symptom of domestication syndrome.
But Stanton isn’t completely convinced that’s actually what’s happening in these urban populations.
“Although morphological changes might have a genetic basis, there are multiple reasons why such changes could occur,” she explains. “Changes in skull shape, for example, could be due to changes in an animal’s diet, since many urban species shift towards eating softer, carbohydrate-rich foods found in our garbage.”
Changes in urban raccoon behavior can’t automatically be chalked up to domestication either.
“If raccoons become habituated to people or learn to associate them with food, they might behave in a more docile or tame manner around people, but this does not mean that they are domesticated,” Stanton continues. Additional empirical evidence, including examination of the raccoon genome, is needed to know for sure.
Regardless, Stanton is adamant that there is no hypothetical future in which raccoons could realistically become good house pets.
“In my opinion, what makes raccoons so charismatic is their curiosity and unruly nature,” she says.
“If we attempt to strip away their wildness through ownership or attempts at domestication, then we may lose some of the qualities that make them so special in the first place.”
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I had a pet raccoon when I was a kid growing up on Long Island, NY.
We had two acres of land, and my father built a large cage for the raccoon in the woods behind our house, where he lived when I wasn’t playing with him.
My father got bit a couple of times, and I was bit too.
They’re cute, but they are wild animals and they belong in the wild. I should not have had him as a pet.
Agree.
Raccoons are nasty.
Interesting that the ptb have wanted to put alpha gal ticks out there... a very anti dog thing.
And are promoting non alcohol beverages.
Both on the Muslim dance card.
https://youtu.be/eAfsVdDaCac?si=fdT1U6Vm-Rs5e2NB
https://youtu.be/4nCXFFubGek?si=lJzMoQQSSuzEjC7I
https://youtu.be/aNyQa5mNGcA?si=2X05QE0AUchIbN59
2 to 3 minutes each of the coolest raccoons on YouTube.
Enjoy! 🦝🦝
“I want no part of a raccoon pet.”
I saw the damage a ‘coon did to a cabin in Minnesota.
I ate threw wooden walls to get inside.
Smart but dangerous...
BTW, real raccoons are a vector for rabies. Per the CDC trash pandas account for about 30% of all rabid animal cases nationwide.
Love them from afar.
We live in the middle of the city...right next to a golf course. We have raccoons but so far they don’t bother us. See them in the back yard once in awhile. We’re having skunk problems. They were living under our ADA and I used skunk repellent and thought they had left. But I keep seeing them...and occasionally smelling them in our back and front yard. Need to get them to move on. lol
Poor possum is just not very bright at all. There is one around here I take pity on because it has a broken or malformed foot so I buy cheap dog food for it trying to keep it out of the cat food.
Raccoons as pets? NO WAY. What they don’t tear up the mess on.
“Both on the Muslim dance card.”
We have pumped huge amounts of money into the Middle East for oil. Arabs are very bright, and are also muslim. It’s pretty obvious that Middle East muslims have bought a lot of politicians in the West.
I dislike and distrust all politicians, it’s just that Democrats have managed to stand out as being even more vile.
“”I saw the damage a ‘coon did to a cabin in Minnesota.
I ate threw wooden walls to get inside.
Smart but dangerous...”
***
Yeah. Had a family of racoons hanging around my patio one year... looking for food (cat food). The little ones were cute, friendly and endearing... but the parents were determined and destructive. There’s a reason why God put a bandit’s mask around their eyes....lol.
Cute little story by author(ai?). I got my cats, and through the years of domestication(?) and my feeding them, they still skulk around, kill the lizards, bugs, birds, field mice, even squirrels, if hungry, or getting back to their true nature. Oh, and before I was forced to neuter them, their mating behaviour was uncontrollable.
Disagree that they are “cute.” They are weasels and act like weasels. Our neighborhood fights them - some got into my attic and I had to have them professionally removed (did not want them killed) at great expense - the exterminator told me they’ll pull at any grills or doors until they get them open, up to two years. Had the attic entryways checked last year and they are holding tight - so far.
They are pests around here, attack cats, steal fruit and are very dirty.
No. Thanks.
I had a pet raccoon. He was fun but always in trouble. He could open the frig and make a mess.
Best pet was a skunk. Lots of yrs ago before it was illegal to fix them. Just like a cat and used a litter box. I walked him in a cat harness and got some weird stares.
Jess hold on thar Elly May. You caint tame a wild critter.
First of all dogs were domesticated well before 14000 years ago, and they were social animals, as are humans. Symbiosis. They get it, you have to be keyed in to your others, your folks. Different species just makes it more interesting.
And they are unbeatable when it comes to loving you.
Coons are strictly out for themselves, and they’re nocturnal. Might as well invite a bipolar human with ocd into your house.
If you’re looking for a pet that does not respect boundaries, get a cat. At least they look good, catch mice, purr, and amuse you...all within reasonable limits.
“He had a particular feral cat that he really liked. A raccoon made short work of that cat.”
That’s why we brought three feral kittens and their mama inside in 2011. Too many raccoons, and they had their eyes on the kittens.
One difference, raccoons have HANDS not paws..............
Like chimps, coons are sweet and cute when they’re young but get mean and dangerous the older they get.
My dad had 2 when he was growing up that he found or got left as kits. One left pretty quick. The other stayed around for a bit. My aunt hated it as it would mess with her hair and clothes when she was folding laundry. The story goes that it figured out it could claw at the back door of the tavern of a night and they would put out a bowel of beer out for it and then it would waddle home.
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