According to The Huffington Post, Wendy Hook and her husband Ron want the City of Saskatoon to grant them a license so they can keep their pet raccoon, Dennis.
Hook said a past landlord gave her Dennis and another raccoon, who died, when they were found as babies. Since then, Dennis has been a pet.
Multiple comments from wildlife experts and the general public have shed light on one significant problem for the Hooks: once Dennis is fully matured, he could become aggressive.
But Wendy Hook has said she isn’t giving up and hopes the City of Saskatoon will change their by-laws to allow her to keep Dennis.
Raccoons – just like many other fur-bearing animals – can be adorable. They’re intelligent, social and have extraordinarily expressive faces. But they are wild animals who deserve to be wild. While they may, on occasion, be able to exist as pets, they really shouldn’t be.
It’s one of the hardest things for animal lovers like all of us to do, but it is absolutely vital: let raccoons be raccoons. When we try to force wild animals to live as we do, or to use the popular term, when we Disney-ify them, no one wins. This is not to say that an orphaned or injured animal should not be taken to an appropriate rehabilitation facility or shown compassion.
We need to always remember to respect wildlife enough to keep the animals wild.
