{"id":19965,"date":"2025-07-25T01:51:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/19965\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T01:51:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:51:12","slug":"rabid-raccoon-reported-to-cops-turns-out-to-be-just-exceptionally-clingy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/19965\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Rabid&#8217; Raccoon Reported To Cops Turns Out To Be Just Exceptionally Clingy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-element-index=\"0\">Earlier this week, officers from Minnesota\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LakevillePoliceDepartment\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lakeville Police Department<\/a> responded to a call about a rabid raccoon on the loose around town. However, the situation wasn\u2019t quite as threatening as the caller had reported.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"1\">In fact, it was quite the opposite.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"0\">\u201cOfficers arrived and quickly realized [the raccoon] was super friendly and dog-like,\u201d a spokesperson for the police department told The Dodo. \u201cHe wanted to be around people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"1\">The young raccoon was eager to interact with the officers in a playful way.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"0\">\u201cHe was much more friendly than what they were expecting!\u201d the spokesperson added. \u201cThe officers quickly established a positive relationship with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"0\">Determining that the raccoon didn\u2019t actually have rabies, the officers initially planned to relocate him to a local park. But that soon proved difficult.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"1\">\u201cHe followed them around and wanted to go back to the squad car, so they figured he was domesticated,\u201d the police spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"2\">The raccoon made sure they couldn\u2019t leave without him.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"0\">It\u2019s unclear if the raccoon is indeed domesticated, but keeping raccoons as pets is generally prohibited in Minnesota. So, just in case, the officers took him to a rehabilitation clinic for continued observation and care.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"1\">With any luck, the young animal will learn to be a bit more wary of people, and have the skills required to survive being released back into the wild.<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"2\">Still, the friendly raccoon \u2014 whom officers lovingly named Gerald \u2014 has left a lasting impression, the police spokesperson said:<\/p>\n<p data-element-index=\"3\">\u201cHe is being talked about by everyone here at the office!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this week, officers from Minnesota\u2019s Lakeville Police Department responded to a call about a rabid raccoon on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,341,44,128,156,20811,339,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-19965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-daily-dodo","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-standard","14":"tag-stephen-messenger","15":"tag-the-dodo","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}