{"id":170548,"date":"2025-12-06T01:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T01:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/170548\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T01:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T01:41:11","slug":"family-returns-home-to-breathing-rock-in-the-yard-then-it-starts-limping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/170548\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Returns Home To ‘Breathing Rock’ In The Yard \u2014 Then It Starts Limping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, Erin Gudeman pulled into her driveway in Farmington Hills, Michigan, after a day at Detroit\u2019s Outdoor Adventure Center with her mom and kids. Everyone noticed an unusual object in the middle of the front yard.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first glance, it looked like a strange, breathing rock,\u201d Gudeman told The Dodo. \u201cEven my mother \u2026 thought it might be a muddy scrap of carpet someone had discarded. But something about it didn\u2019t seem right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erin Gudeman<\/p>\n

Once inside, Gudeman and her family watched from the window as the rock slowly lifted its head.<\/p>\n

A disheveled raccoon limped through Gudeman\u2019s yard and nestled herself behind an inflatable Christmas dinosaur near the front porch.<\/p>\n

Erin Gudeman<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the moment we knew this wasn\u2019t just an odd sight in the yard,\u201d Gudeman said. \u201cThis was an animal in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gudeman asked a friend for advice, then posted in a Michigan wildlife Facebook group. \u201cWorried about him with the snow coming,\u201d she wrote. Local news predicted more than a foot of snow later that night.<\/p>\n

Luckily, word reached Theresa Carroll at Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab<\/a>, who had space for the raccoon. Within 20 minutes, a volunteer picked up the animal from Gudeman\u2019s yard and rushed her over to Carroll.<\/p>\n

Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab<\/p>\n

Right away, Carroll saw that the raccoon suffered from a case of sarcoptic mange, a mite infestation that caused the animal\u2019s fur to fall out and her skin to become rough and itchy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat she has is very typical,\u201d Carroll told The Dodo. \u201cI felt bad for her because she’s got something going on with her left eye and her left paw, as well. And being smaller, you know, odds are stacked against them even more so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab<\/p>\n

Carroll believes the tiny animal would not have survived the night if Gudeman hadn\u2019t found her. The mange had destroyed the raccoon’s coat, and her thin body and bare skin would’ve been totally exposed to the elements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s like being naked and someone giving you a concrete blanket to stay warm,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n

The first course of action for the raccoon was lots of water, because mange causes intense dehydration. Then, Carroll began the raccoon on a rich carbohydrate diet to help her retain fluids.<\/p>\n

Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab<\/p>\n

After several days at Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab, the raccoon is already improving. \u201cShe\u2019s eating and drinking really, really well,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n

Though it looks like she has an injured paw, Carroll is monitoring it rather than putting it in a cast or bandage, which raccoons tend to rip off quickly.<\/p>\n

Despite all she\u2019s been through, this particular raccoon is surprisingly feisty.<\/p>\n

Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with a lot of raccoons, and for only being about seven or eight pounds, she’s a spicy little thing,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n

The raccoon is also good at avoiding her medication, even when Carroll hides it in bananas. \u201cShe’s like, \u2018Yeah, no, I don’t want that. You can’t trick me,\u2019\u201d Carroll laughed.<\/p>\n

Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab<\/p>\n

Mange takes several weeks to heal, then the raccoon\u2019s fur has to grow back, so she\u2019ll be in Carroll\u2019s care for about three months.<\/p>\n

Gudeman is grateful for the community that rallied together for this raccoon.<\/p>\n

She said that \u201cwatching so many people come together so quickly for a vulnerable animal was nothing short of inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you’d like to support Halfway Home Wildlife Rehab, you can purchase items directly from their wish list<\/a>.\u00a0\"Driver<\/a>Driver Pulls Over When He Sees Muddy Little Animal On Side Of Mountain RoadShe walked right up to him \ud83e\udd79<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last weekend, Erin Gudeman pulled into her driveway in Farmington Hills, Michigan, after a day at Detroit\u2019s Outdoor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[9544,85,46,83108,76294,101032,9893,141,2865,9542,386,58457],"class_list":{"0":"post-170548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-daily-dodo","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-raccoon","12":"tag-raccoon-rescue","13":"tag-raccoon-with-mange","14":"tag-sarah-ashley","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-standard","17":"tag-the-dodo","18":"tag-wildlife","19":"tag-wildlife-rescue"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}