27-second youtube
December 24, 2022 8:49 AM Subscribe
ITS LITTLE PAWS
posted by potrzebie at 9:34 AM on December 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 9:34 AM on December 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
SO CUTE!!!
posted by supermedusa at 9:44 AM on December 24, 2022
posted by supermedusa at 9:44 AM on December 24, 2022
Be the wonder that is this little joyous raccoon!!!
posted by Fizz at 10:03 AM on December 24, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 10:03 AM on December 24, 2022 [6 favorites]
yes yes yes yes yes
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:28 AM on December 24, 2022
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:28 AM on December 24, 2022
I hate to be that guy, but as a licensed procyonid behavioral therapist, I know that this "adorable" behavior is actually caused by Elmdorf-Krautzner syndrome. That raccoon is not playing with the snow, but rather it is experiencing intense hallucinations of a god-like being foretelling its doom. (Elmdorf first identified the parasitic amoebas responsible for the syndrome, while Krautzner studied and described the psycho-social impacts following twenty years of fieldwork living among the raccoons and becoming accepted into their family structures.) I don't know which socio-spiritual subgroup this racoon belongs to, of course, but its stance and gesturing suggests it belongs to group 32g-4 in northeastern Montana, whose shared concept of "god" is believed to have the form of a black butterfly with glowing eyes and a ten foot wingspan. ... in fact, yeah, I'm also three-time winner of my regional geoguessing competition (no real appetite to travel for the world finals each year, though, tbh), and I can tell by the fencing style and the directionality of the snowfall that this video was definitely recorded somewhere within the range of group 32g-4.
So that "cute li'l guy" is blitzed out of its mind with stress hormones and pleading with a massive, threatening insect to spare itself and its family. I guess the good news(?) is that E-K syndrome is most intensely triggered by bright light, so as soon as the racoon runs off out of the spotlight at the end of the video, it will "only" be experiencing constant auditory hallucinations proclaiming its painful demise?
posted by whatnotever at 10:37 AM on December 24, 2022 [36 favorites]
So that "cute li'l guy" is blitzed out of its mind with stress hormones and pleading with a massive, threatening insect to spare itself and its family. I guess the good news(?) is that E-K syndrome is most intensely triggered by bright light, so as soon as the racoon runs off out of the spotlight at the end of the video, it will "only" be experiencing constant auditory hallucinations proclaiming its painful demise?
posted by whatnotever at 10:37 AM on December 24, 2022 [36 favorites]
garbage is a helluva drug
posted by chavenet at 10:43 AM on December 24, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 10:43 AM on December 24, 2022 [6 favorites]
Best of the web.
posted by rodlymight at 11:16 AM on December 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rodlymight at 11:16 AM on December 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
as a licensed procyonid behavioral therapist, I know that this "adorable" behavior is actually caused by Elmdorf-Krautzner syndrome.
That was a helluva tale.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:51 PM on December 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
That was a helluva tale.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:51 PM on December 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
I hate to be that that guy, but as a licensed and board certified Doctor of Procyonidae Early Psycosocial Development and Relational Quantum Atmospheric Liquid Crystallization, this little guy is actually participating in a collective of complex behaviors related to Elated Yuletide Capering, an important developmental milestone in, and forgive the necessary scientific jargon here, "wonder".
Dr. BigHeartedGuy, CPEPDRQALC
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:46 PM on December 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
Dr. BigHeartedGuy, CPEPDRQALC
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:46 PM on December 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
I hate to be that guy.
No buts, I just hate being him.
posted by biogeo at 6:03 PM on December 24, 2022 [8 favorites]
No buts, I just hate being him.
posted by biogeo at 6:03 PM on December 24, 2022 [8 favorites]
My family raised two raccoons that were orphaned as babies when a tornado passed by our western PA home. This evening I showed this video to my sister and we both teared up, recalling what it was like to hug Hans and Fritz and squeeze their amazing little paws, and breathe their wonderful wild smell.
posted by kinnakeet at 10:47 PM on December 24, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by kinnakeet at 10:47 PM on December 24, 2022 [8 favorites]
So that's where T Lewis and Michael Fry get their inspiration
posted by DreamerFi at 3:42 AM on December 25, 2022
posted by DreamerFi at 3:42 AM on December 25, 2022
as a licensed procyonid behavioral therapist,
Slightly off topic, but I'd really be interested to hear you expand on this a bit. A day in the life of, training for, that sort of thing. If you care to share.
posted by BWA at 5:32 AM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Slightly off topic, but I'd really be interested to hear you expand on this a bit. A day in the life of, training for, that sort of thing. If you care to share.
posted by BWA at 5:32 AM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Hans and Franz? Off by many decades. It was the early 1960s and my folks were both born in 1921. Hans and Fritz were The Katzenjammer Kids.
posted by kinnakeet at 3:49 AM on December 26, 2022
posted by kinnakeet at 3:49 AM on December 26, 2022
Slightly off topic, but I'd really be interested to hear you expand on this a bit. A day in the life of, training for, that sort of thing. If you care to share.
[I can't tell if you're serious, and this is definitely getting into Get Your Own Blog territory, buuuut we don't get many opportunities to share our field with the wider world, so...]
The training used to be "I yelled at a raccoon once, so that makes me qualified," with all sorts of yahoos claiming expertise, but we really formalized and legitimized the field in the latter half of the 20th century. We have accredited grad programs around the world now — not a ton, but slowly growing. I was lucky to be accepted into the oldest program (and some say the best), started in Albuquerque by Aldous Heffingham. Still department chair when I attended, we all called him Ol' Aldi. He basically founded the whole field himself, with an interesting story behind it. As a young man, he fought in the trenches in WWI. At one point, he was caught out in the open in an artillery barrage, it, uh, wasn't going well, and the rest of his unit was "indisposed" (as he tells it), when he says he saw a raccoon looking at him, just right at him. He didn't know what else to do, so he went towards it, it started running in a particular direction, and he followed it. Shells falling all around, the raccoon changing directions every thirty yards or so, pausing at times, but avoiding every single blast... He says that raccoon saved his life, and after he married Alice and moved to Albuquerque to follow her dream of having an alpaca farm, he decided to learn more about family procyonidae — and to give back, as it were.
(Now, some people argue that Ol' Aldi probably saw a European badger. No procyonids are native to Europe, and raccoons weren't widely introduced there until years later... fine. However, it is quite possible that one had escaped from someone's private menagerie, especially in the chaos of the war! And it just wouldn't do to have the founding of our entire field be based on a simple misidentification of the very subject of our study...)
Okay, so anyway... The training is what you might expect: a lot of classes, then some shadowing and basically apprenticeship to licensed practitioners, and eventually the licensure exam. But there is a tradition upheld by some, of which I count myself one, to follow in Krautzner's trailblazing footsteps as part of our study. I just don't think you can claim to understand the inner life of the procyonid without living among them. Books and video only get you so far. Of course, within the span of a graduate program, we can't really become accepted in the way Krautzner was (he was only first "adopted" after twelve years in the field!), but we have what are essentially semester-long "home stays." We're certainly only ever visitors in the procyonids' homes — everyone is clear that we're "accepted" only so far as we're paying our way with crayfish and bananas, and I'm pretty sure my host family never showed me the best dumpsters or taught me the true secrets of entering doggie doors safely — but it's deeply enlightening nonetheless. Proud to follow in Krautzner's footsteps, we called ourselves "Krauts" (Ol' Aldi... didn't love that).
Now, the practice itself? I've gotta be honest, it's hard finding work sometimes. Lots of us just have a passion for the field, so it's not about the money so much, and we'll help out where we can. We'll go out into the procyonid community to offer free counseling, for example — typically Krauts are more successful at getting buy-in there, but even for us it's hard. Many end up working as dog, cat, or ferret trainers to make ends meet. I appreciate the need to support oneself and one's family, but honestly I think that's ridiculous. It's like a trained car mechanic moonlighting to work on golf carts! What?!
In recent years, though, there have been more paying opportunities. More and more people, especially in the Bay Area, Pacific Northwest, and somewhat in New England, look to us when they have a conflict with a raccoon. There's growing recognition that trap-and-release is inhumane, violent, and destroys families and communities. Instead, a licensed behavioral therapist like me can come in and work with the humans and the animals (sometimes separately, and sometimes in joint sessions) to find common ground and a mutually beneficial resolution. I do a lot of my work in attics...
I recently worked with a Stanford professor and a raccoon who had been, yes, gleaning and repurposing food items from the bins in which she had left them outside of her home. Over many sessions, we got to a place where the raccoon understood the need to be more respectful of the professor's desire for cleanliness and order, while the professor accepted that screaming "trash panda" and throwing olives at the raccoon was hurtful, taxonomically incorrect, and generally problematic. She now manually sorts appropriate pieces from her refuse, sets them on a small table outside of her house (with some olives, as the raccoon developed a taste for them), and rings a bell when she is ready; the raccoon waits for the bell, eats tidily, cleans up, and (usually) leaves an aesthetically pleasing pebble in gratitude. And that's why we do what we do, you know? It's such a better outcome for everyone.
(Fun fact: The Portlandia show had actually developed and filmed a sketch about a fictitious "raccoon shrink" [eyeroll]. They canned it after one of the crew mentioned it at a party to a friend and colleague of mine. They hadn't known it was a real thing! They apparently had Fred Armisen's character just, like, talking to a raccoon. In English. Like, really?!)
And a quick side note: I live in the US, so common raccoons (Procyon lotor) are my bread and butter, but of course I'm trained and licensed to work with the whole family procyonidae. I've gotta say, kinkajous (Potos flavus) are kinda my favorite. They're such... individuals. Really a remarkable variety in personalities and attitudes across all of them, compared to most other procyonids. Each new kinkajou client is a whole new story, a brand new experience — good, bad, and/or totally out there. So we as practitioners end up having a lot of strong opinions about them, too, and, heh, yeah sometimes we get into spats about that. Our main mailing list is pretty heavily moderated now, but even so, we often have to cool things down by reminding each other YKINMKBYKIOK (Your Kinkajou Is Not My Kinkajou, But Your Kinkajou Is OK).
posted by whatnotever at 3:03 PM on December 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
[I can't tell if you're serious, and this is definitely getting into Get Your Own Blog territory, buuuut we don't get many opportunities to share our field with the wider world, so...]
The training used to be "I yelled at a raccoon once, so that makes me qualified," with all sorts of yahoos claiming expertise, but we really formalized and legitimized the field in the latter half of the 20th century. We have accredited grad programs around the world now — not a ton, but slowly growing. I was lucky to be accepted into the oldest program (and some say the best), started in Albuquerque by Aldous Heffingham. Still department chair when I attended, we all called him Ol' Aldi. He basically founded the whole field himself, with an interesting story behind it. As a young man, he fought in the trenches in WWI. At one point, he was caught out in the open in an artillery barrage, it, uh, wasn't going well, and the rest of his unit was "indisposed" (as he tells it), when he says he saw a raccoon looking at him, just right at him. He didn't know what else to do, so he went towards it, it started running in a particular direction, and he followed it. Shells falling all around, the raccoon changing directions every thirty yards or so, pausing at times, but avoiding every single blast... He says that raccoon saved his life, and after he married Alice and moved to Albuquerque to follow her dream of having an alpaca farm, he decided to learn more about family procyonidae — and to give back, as it were.
(Now, some people argue that Ol' Aldi probably saw a European badger. No procyonids are native to Europe, and raccoons weren't widely introduced there until years later... fine. However, it is quite possible that one had escaped from someone's private menagerie, especially in the chaos of the war! And it just wouldn't do to have the founding of our entire field be based on a simple misidentification of the very subject of our study...)
Okay, so anyway... The training is what you might expect: a lot of classes, then some shadowing and basically apprenticeship to licensed practitioners, and eventually the licensure exam. But there is a tradition upheld by some, of which I count myself one, to follow in Krautzner's trailblazing footsteps as part of our study. I just don't think you can claim to understand the inner life of the procyonid without living among them. Books and video only get you so far. Of course, within the span of a graduate program, we can't really become accepted in the way Krautzner was (he was only first "adopted" after twelve years in the field!), but we have what are essentially semester-long "home stays." We're certainly only ever visitors in the procyonids' homes — everyone is clear that we're "accepted" only so far as we're paying our way with crayfish and bananas, and I'm pretty sure my host family never showed me the best dumpsters or taught me the true secrets of entering doggie doors safely — but it's deeply enlightening nonetheless. Proud to follow in Krautzner's footsteps, we called ourselves "Krauts" (Ol' Aldi... didn't love that).
Now, the practice itself? I've gotta be honest, it's hard finding work sometimes. Lots of us just have a passion for the field, so it's not about the money so much, and we'll help out where we can. We'll go out into the procyonid community to offer free counseling, for example — typically Krauts are more successful at getting buy-in there, but even for us it's hard. Many end up working as dog, cat, or ferret trainers to make ends meet. I appreciate the need to support oneself and one's family, but honestly I think that's ridiculous. It's like a trained car mechanic moonlighting to work on golf carts! What?!
In recent years, though, there have been more paying opportunities. More and more people, especially in the Bay Area, Pacific Northwest, and somewhat in New England, look to us when they have a conflict with a raccoon. There's growing recognition that trap-and-release is inhumane, violent, and destroys families and communities. Instead, a licensed behavioral therapist like me can come in and work with the humans and the animals (sometimes separately, and sometimes in joint sessions) to find common ground and a mutually beneficial resolution. I do a lot of my work in attics...
I recently worked with a Stanford professor and a raccoon who had been, yes, gleaning and repurposing food items from the bins in which she had left them outside of her home. Over many sessions, we got to a place where the raccoon understood the need to be more respectful of the professor's desire for cleanliness and order, while the professor accepted that screaming "trash panda" and throwing olives at the raccoon was hurtful, taxonomically incorrect, and generally problematic. She now manually sorts appropriate pieces from her refuse, sets them on a small table outside of her house (with some olives, as the raccoon developed a taste for them), and rings a bell when she is ready; the raccoon waits for the bell, eats tidily, cleans up, and (usually) leaves an aesthetically pleasing pebble in gratitude. And that's why we do what we do, you know? It's such a better outcome for everyone.
(Fun fact: The Portlandia show had actually developed and filmed a sketch about a fictitious "raccoon shrink" [eyeroll]. They canned it after one of the crew mentioned it at a party to a friend and colleague of mine. They hadn't known it was a real thing! They apparently had Fred Armisen's character just, like, talking to a raccoon. In English. Like, really?!)
And a quick side note: I live in the US, so common raccoons (Procyon lotor) are my bread and butter, but of course I'm trained and licensed to work with the whole family procyonidae. I've gotta say, kinkajous (Potos flavus) are kinda my favorite. They're such... individuals. Really a remarkable variety in personalities and attitudes across all of them, compared to most other procyonids. Each new kinkajou client is a whole new story, a brand new experience — good, bad, and/or totally out there. So we as practitioners end up having a lot of strong opinions about them, too, and, heh, yeah sometimes we get into spats about that. Our main mailing list is pretty heavily moderated now, but even so, we often have to cool things down by reminding each other YKINMKBYKIOK (Your Kinkajou Is Not My Kinkajou, But Your Kinkajou Is OK).
posted by whatnotever at 3:03 PM on December 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
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posted by BostonTerrier at 8:54 AM on December 24, 2022 [6 favorites]