The pet I’ll never forget: Mishka, the surly but beloved raccoon

2026-02-09 - 11:25

She hated water, attacked our Christmas tree, destroyed our wallpaper – but everyone who met her was won over Mishka was about eight weeks old when we got her. It was 2004, we were living in Dibden, New Forest, and I was looking to buy some guinea pigs. I saw an ad for a raccoon on the secondhand site Preloved. My husband, Graham, and I lived in Florida in the 90s and had a raccoon that would come into the yard. It had a bad leg, and we nurtured it, so I was very interested in raccoons. I met someone who bred them after researching on Google, and we ended up with three, one after the other – we bought two, Nigel and Casey, and later, Mishka was given to us. Continue reading...