He was literally screaming when we went in the garage pushed up against the far back corner of this huge dog kennel that they keep their golden lab in (who by the way was on the other side of the door barking his head off and had been ever since they got the baby coon). I went in the kennel and picked him up and wrapped him and cuddled him and he settled right down and snuggled into my neck. She couldn't believe that he settled like that and said that he had screamed the whole time they had him. I got him home and fed him and put him in a comfy cage in the bathroom. I never knew that an animal could scream, but scream he did. It sounded like he was absolutely terrified. I thought he might settle on his own and waited 5 minutes and then I just couldn't take it anymore. I have a baby's sleeping bag I bought for the cats so put him in it and zipped it up and put him on an old pillow and took him to bed with me. He just cuddled up as close as he could get to me and went right to sleep.

I was going to keep him and Maggie separate but he was so frightened when I put him down and started this horrid screaming (I had no idea they had that much volume!) so I put them together. I named him Ripper.

What bothers me more than anything else is the number of people that went by that coon and just left him there clutching to his Momma, including this couple who finally went and got him. Not to mention the idiot that dragged that coon to the side of the road and left that poor baby there! My sister and I went to where the Momma was and saw she had 5 swollen nipples so we knew that there were more babies. It took us two days and nights but we finally found them in a barn about 30 yards from the spot where the Momma was lying on the road. There were 4 of them (all girls) so now I have 6 including Maggie. They were in the bottom of the barn, two of them on top of a wall and 2 in between the wall. We had to take out a brick and stand on a pail to reach them but they were fine. They were hungry and scared but when Ripper was reunited with them you could tell he knew them and was really happy to see them.

When we introduced him to Maggie he was leery of her but warmed up to her. When he saw the 4 kits from the barn he was all over them purring and mewing and touching them. They are all the same color with long tails and long thin noses. Ripper is the only boy. Maggie is darker in color with a short stubby tail and chubby face. I'm "coonstuck" once more!

We raised the six babies together and built them a "coondo" near the woods and put food all around the outside of the coondo each evening so the wild ones would come up and get used to the babies. We released a very healthy bunch back to the wild in September 2004. They all came back every night to visit and get treats. They put on weight and grew their coats thick in preparation for winter. We put a treehouse up in a tree near the coondo hoping that they would take up residence, but they chose to den somewhere in the woods.

On December 30th 2004 we saw Ripper in between the treehouse and the tree about 30 feet from the ground. We got the ladder and went up and he was dead. All 5 of the girls were inside the treehouse. It took me ten minutes to get Ripper loose from the tree. He was frozen solid. As I was trying to get him down Maggie kept coming to the door of the treehouse and looking at me. Twice she put her hannie out and touched Ripper’s fur. That night all the girls came down and went back to wherever they are denning in the woods. They have been back for food but not to stay.

I had a necropsy done on Ripper and it showed that he had severe diarrhea which caused dehydration and brought on pneumonia. It is believed it was something that he had eaten that brought this all on. We believe that he came home to die and the girls came with him and perhaps helped him get here. He went up in the tree and went into a coma and passed on. The girls stayed with him until I took him down and he was no longer there.