Trouble in the Poplars

Trouble

acrylic, 4" by 5"

We're the only people I know of who can go off to buy a puppy and come home with a raccoon (well, the puppy came home as well, of course).

It happened on a sunny summer day 15 years ago - we went to a well respected breeder's kennel to pick up our anxiously awaited puppy, whom we had reserved about 8 months earlier. In the sunlit backyard, a litter of puppies was contentedly dozing on a huge blanket - and there, in the middle of the pile o' puppies was a little grey head with button eyes and a nose twitching inquisitively in our direction.

Turns out the little orphan had been raised by the puppies' mom along with the canine litter - but unfortunately, the rest of the dogs on the property didn't share her hormonally induced love for little gray masked bandits, and the little raccoon was in grave danger of getting killed as it began to wander further afield and get into the adult dogs' yards. "I don't know what to do with her - she really should be released in the woods somewhere , but around here she will keep coming back to the house, and the dogs will eventually get her.", the breeder said.

Hubby and I took one look at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and said in unison "We'll take her!" Of course, being a raccoon, Trouble was the only name that suggested itself, and she proceeded to live up to it for the next few months, until in late fall she gradually stayed in the woods longer and longer. Between January and the end of March she never showed up at all, and we thought she had either gone totally wild, or come to grief.

But then one day towards the end of March, there she was on the deck, demanding food. When she stood up on her hind legs to reach for the bowl of kibble we brought her, her swollen nipples were obvious - our little girl had a family of her own!

She followed that pattern for several years, appearing for a few short weeks in the spring, to get extra groceries for her family when the pickings were still slim in the woods. She's been gone for years, but I like to think that some of the raccoons chirping in the trees around the house in the spring are Trouble's descendants.