Raccoon Sheila

Finding raccoon Sheila was an odd answer to prayer. I realize most people pray for very different things, but I REALLY wanted a raccoon baby to raise like I had the summer before. I couldn’t believe it when I found the nest of 4 baby raccoons in my attic!

I immediately texted my husband: “I just found four raccoon babies! God really DOES love me!!!”

His response: “I know God loves you, but now I’m really wondering what he thinks of me.”

At that point I started praying to find a baby elephant in my attic – Eric started praying against me. So far he has won – but time will tell on this one.

Raccoon Sheila’s typical day was spent sleeping in the crook of my neck. This was only interrupted for her bottle feedings. It was the best spring ever!

Just prior to finding her, I had been diagnosed with a condition that required immediate surgery. Naturally my biggest concern was who would take care of Sheila while I was in the hospital? My husband was a VERY good sport and bottle-fed her while I was gone:)

I was told by the anesthesiologist that the first thing I said when I woke up was, “Is my baby raccoon okay?” They thought I was just delirious from the drugs. Little did they know that was just normal life for me. Apparently, I also made everyone who entered the room hug me and told them profusely how much I loved them. I’m a good patient;)

The post-operative period was better then any vacation I can think of – I spent a week in bed watching Golden Girls DVDs and snuggling my baby raccoon. What more could you ask for really?

Sheila quickly moved into toddler phase, which was VERY fun, but a little tiring. She wanted to climb everything, crawl into any available space, and throw things.

My husband’s patience wore out the day she started screeching at night – it was time for Sheila to live at my clinic.

Furry Family Veterinary Clinic was located in Noblesville at the time. I brought her to work with me, and lets just say that it was even more of a disaster than having her at home. Within ONE hour she had climbed the oxygen tank and disconnected the anesthetic scavenger system, sat on the sharps container and rapidly extracted the contents – tossing blades, needles and syringes everywhere, ran into an exam room after me, (I still remember the look on my poor client’s face – priceless!) pulled out all the flowers in the decorative flower box I had in the waiting room, snuck into the receptionist’s desk drawer and nearly gave her a heart attack when she opened it to find Sheila curled up with her pens, knocked over every trash can, unrolled a roll of paper towels, and dismantled all the stocked canned goods.

Shelia was then moved to my rescue on 146^th street.

This proved to be a MUCH better home for her. The residents at the time included a Momma dog and her 11 puppies (4 of which were actually foster pups that she kindly accepted as her own), a momma cat and her 6 kittens, another momma cat and her 5 babies and two other adult kitties. It was my own little hoarding house petting zoo.

Sheila fit in very well with everyone. She took a special affinity to the momma cat with 5 babies – pretty sure she thought she was just number 6.

Over time, the menagerie of critters went from co-existing to BFFs and it was hilarious to watch them interact! Sheila would wrestle with the kittens and climb up the cat tree with them, she rolled around with the puppies when the kittens shunned her for getting too rough, and she really just annoyed poor momma dog who was already exhausted by her 11 babies.

At this time the newspaper “The Carmel Current” heard about my rescue organization and contacted me to do a story on Dr. Mary. It was my 15 minutes of fame!  The editors wrote a VERY nice article about my rescue and it thankfully drew a lot of attention from the local community. We found homes for all the puppies, momma dog, the kittens and some of the cats were transferred to my dear friend Peggy Hodges at From the Heart Rescue (Sheila was becoming way too rough with the cats by this point).

Sheila was now living alone at my rescue and it was time to start getting her acclimated to the outside. This was heartbreaking for me, but we still had our daily doses of fun! We hung out by the pool together and when she felt brave enough she would go for a ride on my shoulder across the deep end. Her most favorite food in the world was “Craisins”, and that became a routine bonding time. I loved watching her pick up the dried cranberry with both hands and eat it like a little kid with an ice pop. She also LOVED Starbursts. As I suspected there are not many wild Starbursts in Hamilton County, I limited them to special treat time only.  I will confess it was hard to resist not feeding them more frequently since it was so fun to watch her unwrap it with her little fingers and thumbs!

My husband and I were scheduled for an annual summer vacation to Michigan, which posed a serious problem of what to do with Sheila. It is not your average person who is willing to pet-sit your baby raccoon. Thankfully, we have some pretty awesome friends – Dr. Jim Rasp (the best chiropractor ever) and his family took in Sheila for the entire week. I’m pretty sure they had no idea what they were getting themselves into or they probably would have said no!

We heard all about her adventures at the Rasps house when we came home: getting into cabinets, drawers (she especially loved Mrs. Rasp’s cosmetic drawer), purses and the best of all: unscrewing the living room light bulb! Who know she was so handy?!

Sheila came back to my rescue and we continued the summer right where we left off. After several weeks, a day came when Sheila did not come for her dried cranberry treats. I knew something was terribly wrong. My husband tried to reassure me that she was fine and probably just starting to become a normal teenager. But I knew in my gut she was not okay. Everyday, several times a day, I would come with my bag of craisins and call for her – nothing. A week went by and I mourned everyday without seeing her. I finally went on an hour-long search for her around the property and was devastated to find that she had passed away. I found her under the shrubs in the backyard – my heart broke and I wept like a child.

To this day I do not know what happened to her. She had no obvious injuries and I’ve been most suspicious of poisoning (not necessarily intentional to her, but unfortunately people use rodent poison fairly often). I think about her very frequently and miss her dearly. Though the ending is very sad, it cannot replace the hundreds of happy memories I had with her and the joy it still brings my heart to this day to remember my little Sheila.

I’m holding out hope for a raccoon Rita or Ralphie this springJ