Young Wild Raccoon's Second Night Teaching Me How To Count

2/7/2011 - Night two: A young wild raccoon signals to me how many pieces of kibble he wants and then eats it out of my hand. During this class, an older raccoon, a regular to the free meals we provide to raccoons, arrives. This is long, not edited, because I wanted to have as intact a record as possible of what this little raccoon does on his own. If you want to skip past the other raccoon (he eats from 10:40 - 19:27), Fiver's "second seating" begins at 19:30 into this clip.

I'm more convinced after this second visit that someone taught him to 'give me five' before he showed up here.

FYI: I live by a riparian corridor through which different species of animals pass through continually. I'm photographing and videotaping all of the raccoons who come around in order to be able to identify each and study their behavior.

The video clip located at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qTCwiwlM6s recorded the first time I'd seen this particular raccoon or fed him. At the very beginning of that video, where I say "Give me five", that was the first time I said "Give me five" to this little raccoon or any raccoon. He had done the behavior (patting my hand reminiscent of 'Gimme five!') a couple of times and I blurted it out. After I did, his pats became more definite, consistent...and insistent.

I'd been feeding him for a few minutes before the video begins, and did with him what I do what all of them: I'd offered a handful of kibble. This little raccoon scooped up as much kibble as he could from my hand and carried it away quickly out of the camera's range to eat. After a couple of times of that, I modified the routine by offering him only one piece of kibble at a time, to keep him in the camera's range.

Since then, I've tried 'Give me five' with the other raccoons and they're not having any of it. They arrive here ravenous, wolf down copious quantities of dog kibble in short order from my hand without moving out of the camera's range. They become agitated, impatient, irritable and the feeding becomes frenzied, difficult to manage and potentially dangerous when I've tried to do with them what I'm doing with the little raccoon in this video (one piece of kibble per one pat on the hand).

FAQ:

1.) What is operant conditioning?

A process of behavior modification in which the likelihood of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative reinforcement (not to be confused with punishment or aversive consequences) each time the behavior is exhibited, so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the reinforcement with the behavior.

2.) How will we know if this little raccoon can count?

When he consistently taps my hand five times each time, which gets him the maximum (five) pieces of kibble.

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[TheSpectralReview]

I keep getting raccoons in my yard every time I go out to use my telescope at night...I just ran into my house after hearing one of them growl. They scare the shit out of me! What am I to do?

[birdseedrus]

@TheSpectralReview That depends on what you want to happen. Do you want to get over the fear or do you want to get rid of the raccoons?

[birdseedrus]

@TheSpectralReview Was the growling raccoon growling at you or at another raccoon?

[birdseedrus]

@TheSpectralReview The ones who come by here only growl at each other, never at me. They're amazingly gentle with me, careful to retract their claws when scooping kibble out of my hand. I never make any fast or sudden movements. When I do move, I make sure not to surprise or startle them, that they can see me and are warned.

[chinaeskimo]

Look at my video of the coon, Franz. I clicker trained him to touch his ears on command :-)

[birdseedrus]

@chinaeskimo Franz is very cute. It looks like your dog would like to get in on that action, too (touch his ears for a food reward). ;)

[TheSpectralReview]

@birdseedrus

Thanks for the tips! It's great to get advice from an experienced person like yourself. I guess if I hear them should I just stand there and be calm?

[poopybooyah]

cute little raccoon

[bradcarroll]

I enjoyed every one of the 41 minutes. Thank you for sharing that :o)

[mamaloochie]

Raccoons are smart