Raccoon adventure at Autobahn Auto

An hour before closing today, me and my employee Nathan stood in the back shop by my tool box. He looked suddenly past me and said "Oh kitten. Oh no, raccoon."

I turned to look, thinking he is kidding me. Just a few feet away, this raccoon toddler walked, drunk like, around the shop.

A few weeks ago we discovered a dead, adult raccoon in the dungeons, which is the far back part of the shop where we keep parts cars stacked on top of one another. That part of the shop is a add on, accessible by a heavy door. We call that part the dungeons because there is no lights there, just some daylight through a window and some holes in the roof.

So here was this raccoon baby walking around us, no different than a tame puppy. He looked like he was near death, he walked slow, not scared of us, tipping over a few times. His fur was wet, he looked skinny. While my business partner rushed in with a box, Nathan called animal control. We feared he might get away and die in the shop. We all had the same thought, exercise our human power to save this poor creature.



The box scared the poor baby and he came to life, standing on his hind legs screaming. Then he walked away and stood by the door to the dungeons which I had closed after going in there an hour earlier. Nathan and I decided to open the door to see if he would lead us to more baby raccoons in need. Once in there, he crawled in the darkest corner behind a car, crying and trying to climb the vehicles.

I got a flashlight and climbed to the car stacked on top of it. There I sighted the face of another baby raccoon behind the front seats. In the meanwhile, the other raccoon walked back to the front of the shop where he just sat and waited like a puppy outside a store. We walked right by him several times and that didn't bother him at all.

Animal control showed up and now Nathan and I felt saver, these guys know what they're doing, right? He put the one in a cage and suggested putting up traps. He feared, we open the car door and they might jump in his face (or ours.)

After offering our help, the animal control guy agreed to try to recover the raccoons. I got onto the roof of the two pile car, he handed me his gizmo, a stick and handle that looked like one of those light bulb changing devices but with a claw. The man held a cage below the door while I opened it and fished for the second baby raccoon. By the time I was done, there were 4 baby raccoons in the cage.

Another animal control officer rushed to the scene. The lady admired our catch, but suggested separating the fallen dirty one.He was being licked and hugged by the others who were happy to see him. The lady opened the cage and reached in with her bare hands, picking up the one like a cat picks up her kittens. She even cleaned him and he loved it.


These baby raccoons had no way to get down from the cars inside the shop, had it not been for the one baby falling down from the car, we would have not noticed them until they died.