The other morning, while heading out the front door of their house in Canada, a homeowner came face-to-face with an unexpected visitor hanging out on their front porch.
The visitor was hanging out of the front porch ceiling, to be exact — and the encounter, no doubt, came as quite a surprise to them both.
Turns out, at some point in the night, a local raccoon who’d gained access to the home’s attic space decided to take a shortcut back outside. To do so, he’d popped out an overhead light fixture and attempted to squeeze his chubby body through the hole it left behind.
Unfortunately, however, the raccoon got stuck. He’d need a helping hand to be able to continue on his way.
“The homeowner found him there and called us,” Max McVety, an employee of Forest City Wildlife Control, told The Dodo. “The raccoon was just kind of hanging there. They can typically pull themselves through small holes like that one, but the raccoon had nothing to hold onto.”
Seeing that, McVety placed a ladder beneath the dangling raccoon and handed him a rope. Then he began to pull.
Here’s footage of that effort, and its successful conclusion:
Thankfully, the stuck raccoon eventually squeezed through the hole and onto the ladder, after which he leapt to the ground and ran away back to freedom.
Rescuing and relocating wildlife often involves coming into contact with them using a gloved hand or a catch pole, which, McVety notes, causes animals stress. With this raccoon, he simply needed something to hold onto to unjam himself.
“It was definitely fortunate,” McVety said.
Getty Images/Gavin Wilson / 500px
The raccoon’s suspected entry point into the home has since been sealed, so, with any luck, his predicament that morning will remain a one-off. It certainly stood out to McVety.
“It’s something different every day,” he said. “We’ve seen some interesting situations, but that was probably the tip of the iceberg. It was definitely, definitely not an everyday rescue.”
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