Listening to the news the past few days, I kept hearing that Coronavirus is now believed to — possibly — have come from raccoon dogs. Now even though I’m a pretty worldly guy, I had never hear of a “raccoon dog.”
So I did what I must in situations like this — I did some extensive research.
In simple terms, raccoon dogs are wild dogs whose face looks like a raccoon’s. They are a member of the canid, or dog family with fur markings and head shapes similar to those of raccoons. They’re more closely related to foxes than to domesticated dogs. Their diets consist of both plants and animals and they are native to East Asia — including parts of China, Korea and Japan. Their population exploded due to breeding from the fur farming industry and they are now a widespread “invasive species” throughout northern and western Europe.
Growing up in Maysville, Oklahoma, a popular dog was the coon dog — everyone called them coonhounds. They were nice dogs with long floppy ears and kind of sad eyes. They were popular hunting dogs. Those dogs are in no way related to raccoon dogs — they’re a completely different species.
But to get back to the day’s subject — raccoon dogs were (and probably still are) sold for food in live animal markets in China. They are wild animals, not domesticated pets. They need lots of space and are difficult to manage in enclosures or small spaces. They also have a strong odor because they use scent to communicate, so they wouldn’t a desirable animal to have indoors. If a raccoon dog escapes or is released into parts of the world it isn’t native to, it can threaten native wildlife.
So — even though they’re kind of cute, you wouldn’t want one for a pet.
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