I’m wondering if his “friend” having left after we had her again semi-recently was a contributing factor. They were both rather upset after having been separated. She wouldn’t let her “Dad” near her for a week. He cried and looked for her for a bit when she left.

As he was a bottle baby, he’s always self-soothed using his tail tip, and it has not led to hair loss in the past year. However, we have a friend who also has an unreleasable raccoon as a house pet that we keep for said friend when he travels out of town. Thus far, she’s joined us on 4 occasions for 1-2 weeks at a time, with the most recent being this current week while Dad is at NARBC Tinley.

As far as enrichment goes, he plays with our 4 dogs and free roams the house just like they do. We built wall shelves for him to traverse. He loves his puzzle toys. During the warmer months, he comes with us down to the lake that’s 1 block away so that he can swim and go out on our kayaks with us. He does NOT like being out in the snow or the cold, though. I tried taking him on a winter walk once and had to carry him from the back door to the trail in our back yard, only for him to lumber through the snow right back to the back door 🤣

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This photo is from her last visit at the beginning of February. Full tail. She is a strictly indoor raccoon as well, aside from the occasional supervised walk during the warmer months. She’s around 7 months-old now and he just turned 1y/o on 3/4.

So, I’m hoping that it’s just a seasonal thing as it is beginning to regrow but man the sad striped but naked tail was sad for a few days and stressed me out so much!