Wildlife: Heidi Chronicles: A New Year Begins!, 1 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
Tonight it's all about Dennis, well mostly. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but Dennis is, well, frankly, a bit on the homely side. Poor thing he's a bit small for a guy, not stunted like Fraidy, just small. Hopefully, he'll fill out more when his hormones kick in. He doesn't have the elegant red blond coloring of Blondie and HRH or even the 'normal' black and tan coloring of Heidi and Juliet. Dennis is small, seems to walk around in the hunchback position a lot, and has a mottled, near black coat reminiscent of a brindled cat.

But whatever Dennis lacks in physical beauty, he more than makes up for in personality. Dennis is a ham. He's the class clown. He's playful and good natured. If Cissy or Blondie wants his food, he'll just give it to them. No problem. Dennis would rather play than eat anyhow. Dennis is proof that a raccoon can have ADHD.

For the most part, the other raccoons come by, see what's offered, eat what they like, squabble with each other, get a drink of water, and leave. Not Dennis. Dennis walks across the yard with a swagger that reminds me of young human males trying to look 'cool'. He'll nibble a bite or two of cat food then waltz over to me to check out the treats. He'll take a bite, climb on my knee to see what else I have, take another bite, look in the chair to see what's there, 'sneak' any treats he can find on the chair seat, try to steal my stuff, walk around under the chair, play with a toy at my feet, take another bite, climb on the chair, check to see if now I have anything new, sit on the chair to eat a bit of whatever I give him, climb down...and on and on and on.

Dennis reminds me of my nephew (oh, I hope he never finds this) with ADHD who, if he asks me a question one minute will be outside and across the yard climbing on the fence before I can answer him, and if I order him a pizza he'll take one bite and then jump up to run off and play a video game - for a second. That's Dennis.

Thursday night in between eating grapes Dennis kept taking a playful swat at this little toy near my foot. (I think it was a tiny plush from a Happy Meal.) Thinking that Dennis appeared to be trying to figure out how to get me to play with him, I picked up the toy and gently moved it back and forth on the ground in front of him, and sure enough he started reaching for it. I would move it about, and he would take it from me and bat it about a bit in front of me. Then I'd grab the end of it again and move it some more. He was definitely playing with it and with me. It was incredible. And I could see that he was very careful not to play rough. When he was a baby I played with him using a toy on a string, but now we were playing with a small plush toy. ...and then, given his short attention span, after we played for a few minutes, Dennis wandered off to do something else.

Tonight Dennis was there before I could sit down. Normally, I unpack and put the stuff on the chair seat while I set up. Tonight I had 2 eggs, a yogurt, and a bag of marshmallows. I put the 2 eggs and the yogurt on the chair seat, and while I tried to open the bag of mm, Dennis was at my feet reaching and trying to grab the bag. I had to keep holding the bag higher and higher. Finally I got it open and gave him one. He took a bite and then dropped the mm to go see what was on the chair. Standing upright by the chair, he grabbed the unopened yogurt just a second too fast for me to move it. But he gave it back. Like I said, Dennis is very good natured. He just loves to play and explore. While I was trying to open the yogurt, he reached up and grabbed an egg. It was a lot like dealing with a 2 year old. It was cute, though, how he grabbed the egg in his 2 hands and moved it from the chair to the ground. The egg wasn't chipped yet, and he couldn't figure out how to open it, but with Dennis that wasn't a problem. All I had to do was reach down, pick it up, chip it for him, and give it back. Naturally, he ate a bit of egg and then came back to see if i had anything else. As I again struggled to open the yogurt, we went through a repeat of the reaching and holding it higher thing. He ate a little yogurt, climbed on the chair, ate some more egg, walked around the area, stood up at my knee, ate some more yogurt, climbed on the tractor scoot...

When I got the camera out to take a picture Dennis grabbed the lanyard dangling from it. Soon we were playing tug of war with the camera cord. When Dennis and I played briefly with the toy when he was smaller, I thought that was really cute but I had no idea that he would remember that, but now as he played with the camera cord it seemed as though he actually did remember. Photo below. Not the greatest since I was snapping the pick with the camera as he was playing with the cord.