I remember once having to chase one out of my living room! The back door was left open for just a couple of minutes, and it wandered in.

Hehe. Just like in that Sears Optical commercial where the woman thought it was her cat.

That is adorable.
hmm.. I it were me, i would keep feeding them. But then you have an outdoor cat.. i would hate to see it get into a squabble with them.
Wonderful catch, getting a picture of em.

neat :3 When I was a kid we used to have raccoons come up on our back porch. We'd sit outside and hand-feed them some cat food. They'd grab it off our hands to munch on it, it was pretty neat :3

hhheelllll no, those things are mean as fuck
id have that thing on my wall by now

Photographs are good enough for me.

hehe reminds me of the time when i was running for cross country and came face to face with one about times the size of that one! lol i jumped a few feet in the air and started sprinting away lol

2x-3x bigger than these would mean the animal was 75-100 pounds? I doubt they were ever THAT big, but they sure are a lot larger in person than in a photo.

lol well it was standing up and surprised me! yea maybe this one just looks smaller b/c its a photo! but ive seen plenty of raccoons up close and this one was bigger than any other coon ive ever seen!

OMIGAWD 'COONIES!

They're so fucking adorable! Damn, you're so lucky to get to see 'em up close. >.<

We had one out by our back porch about three weeks ago sifting through something in the back that was eight by our glass entryway by the hot tub.
It was game night and even though he could see us inside, he really didn't pay anyone mind, let alone when someone tried to shoo him away, he just walked off.

I swore that said "coons on my pouch" when I first read it. Makes sense too.

Back in the early 80's I was petting my neighbor's cat in front of house's door at night when one walked by (less than four feet away) so silently that the cat did not take notice until 2 seconds after it passed. I also had a "tame" one placed on my head at Megaplex 5 in Orlando in 2005; she had very scratchy claws. It was really funny to see her on top of a raccoon suiters head.

If they're that adapted to raiding and fearless of people (I'm sure they knew perfectly well that you were standing there - raccoons have keen senses and audacious behaviors), I bet you could make them moderately friendly. I used to have a pet boar raccoon so they can be nice folk when properly socialized.

I currently have some that stow away under one of our barns. They have gotten used to me being out there when I feed the livestock and cats and now will come right out for their share of the cat food. Patience, slow movement, and quiet has paid off. Now the resident wild forest raccoons will eat the cat food off my boots and deign to be patted on the back.

Mind you, it might be ill-advised to encourage the behavior in a suburban setting. They could decide 'hey, the food comes out of that big wooden funny smelling box, why don't we go find out where it comes from guys?' And then you come home to your windows jimmied open, your refrigerator trashed, cabinets ransacked, porn missing, and cushions soiled. Beware of raccoons out for snackies.

No kidding! It's hard enough keeping them off the wifi now as it is!

so thats what  odakota_furry does at night

At my grandmother's home in Georgia, I used to feed old bread goods to raccoons by sticking my hand out the sliding door for them to come up and take the bread from me. It was unwise in retrospect, but I was a kid at the time, and thankfully bright enough to not make any attempts to reach out and pet them, so they were perfectly civil about getting the free food.

Encouraging wild animals to come to one's house can often lead to bad things. Rabies eventually became unfortunately common enough that the raccoon feeding came to an end.

Well gollly... a walking fur cap.

I'm glad that your cat had enough common sense to stay up save and only vocally express outrage. 'Coons could easily decide to expand their diet to include a little fresh kitty in addition to kitty's kibble.

You may have to discourage them by ending the outdoor buffet to avoid getting a full troop of the bandits. Or you could open a habberdashery, I could use a new wilderness hat.

They're quite handsome critters, aren't they? Remarkably intelligent, too. They're not as much fun inside your house, though. I had them break in a couple of times. Not a nice surprise...

Oh Flinters. Come to Toronto where those animals will climb on your lap and ask for food by putting their hands out. Sort of awesome and scary, but no open scary "RABIES!" fearing beasts that everyone makes them out to be. Saw a fox the other morning on the way home, he was following Rabbit tracks in the freshly fallen snow, the skunks walk beside you, but you're the one more scared as they like walking on the warm sidewalk after the sun has gone down and the monster squirrels which are the sizes of small bunnies!

Toronto has a river running through it, that you can't build near at all, so it's a huge stripe of a Green Zone the animals can travel and hide in.

I've even had a Coyote pop out of the bushes a few feet from me, shake off (dew and wet bushes) and kept pace walking ahead of me, I whistled to let him know I was there as he didn't hear, he looked over his hsoulder and was like "Oh...human..." and kept walking. Matched my pace for about 1/8th of a mile and then he continued past me, turned on the sidewalk anjd went out of sight.

So c'mon up and you can see these ringy critters up close!

You're reminding me that down here in New England I spotted a big gangly 'yote pup playing in traffic on the local Main Street at midday.

I rather hope he made it across okay, but from the brief glimpse - and belated processing and realizing what it was - he looked like he was enjoying himself, at least.

Every once in a while a grown one pops up in the neighborhood [not in traffic], but we're a very woodsy chunk of suburbia, so that's not really unexpected. I hear you don't have to worry until they're in your fridge or riding the subway.

http://6doi.net/wp-content/uploads/...../04/coyote.jpg

and

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PGvSoaafX.....rtland-MAX.jpg you mean? ((Second one being a light-rail))

Hey, never seen that second one!

I was thinking of http://englishrussia.com/index.php/.....ow-stray-dogs/ (caution: may be extra-popupful for Windows/IE users, I wouldn't know)

NOOOOOOOO DONT KILL DA ANIMALS THERE LIKE A PART OF US FURS

I had two huge raccoons in my back yard Wednesday morning. I've seen them around my home several times, and even had them get into the attic of my house.

I one time came across a large family of Coons going through my parents backyard (which is considered in the city) the very large female was followed by three kits or was it four. I watched them from a distance as sort of wondered under my parents large porch where they stayed for a while before then wondering off. I have in recent years been seeing more and more wild animals in the city. This past year I was tracking (in my car) a herd of (if 3 can be considered a herd) through the side streets. They where really cool unfortunately all the pictures I took of them did not come out to well.

ANY WAY, it is sometimes really cool to wild animals with out any fences between you and them (though glass is OK)

Like seemingly everyone else here, I eventually got so close as to pet the local crowd back in the '80s, before rabies became a big scare up in my neck of the woods [NE]. They usually just got stale bread and cereal, but following a tip from some book, marshmallows keep them busy for quite a while.

Since they're already around and 'raiding,' they already know that food comes out of houses. So they make a great way to dispose of stale bread, and tossing it at some distance will let you enjoy 'em while distracting them from bothering your cat or the neighbors - until the food is gone!

That, or I'm just part of the bread/raccoon/marshmallow conspiracy.

Reminds me of a few years ago. Went to go outside to get something from my car and there was this big ole momma coon(she was about as pregnant as could be), sitting on our back porch eating the cat food we had put out. When she saw me she didn't even run, in fact she came right up to the door, stood up, and looked at me like "Hey, just here having a snack. You don't mind do you?" And then went right back to eating. Wish I had my camera that night.

Got one of those in my attic last year. Was a 35 pounder o.o

If that happens again go get a laser pointer. I hear that can be very entertaining!

"Coons? When raccoons try to get on our back porch, Mama just chase 'em off with a broom." forest gump has ruined me....

And now I cant help but to think in naked sexy anthro coons doing the exact same thing

Nono- naked coon girls go in my bed!

better on the Porch then in the roof

the title was...misleading

Maybe, but you have to catch them first...

Careful cause they can mess up a cat. Otherwise its pretty cool.

i have pictures of coons as well. hehehe a family of them. but awesome shot hun.

I've seen my share of big coons. Grandfather was an old trapper and there were people actaully willing to buy the coon meat off of him. I think i prefer to see them alive rather than dead.

Great shot you got there. Its a chubby little joker.

Our cats don't seem to mine raccoons or skunks, they tend to just look at them and otherwise mostly ignore them.

I've only seen a raccoon directly 3 times. Only once did I get a good close look at it. In fact, I snapped a similar picture: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4700342/
As much as I feel like I should consider them pests, it's such a treat to actually hang out with one on the porch. This one didn't seem to mind me much as long as I stayed a few feet away.