Corgies never lit any kind of spark for me. I used to have a Great Pyrenees, and then I had a Newfoundland. I've also had an assortment of mutts.

My favorite of all the animals I've kept company with was the first raccoon I ever raised. She was found as a baby, in the middle of Dupont Circle, in Washington DC. I was a wildlife rehabilitation worker back then, so they brought her to me to raise her and eventually to release her.

I named her Bergamot. She thought I was her mother. We used to talk in raccoon talk, and she followed me around wherever I went. Imagine this... a very small woman with a great huge white dog that looked a bit like a polar bear with a tail, followed by a raccoon, walking around the neighborhoods of suburban Maryland.

She was incredibly smart. She used to like to play in the toilet (looking for crayfish, I guess). One time a guest who didn't know about her went into the bathroom intending to use it. Upon walking in, the guest was confronted with a raccoon poking it's head up out of the toilet. I have always wondered if that guest still needed to use the bathroom after that bit of surprise.

I really miss raccoons. I've raised several, but I wouldn't do it now. There's too much rabies around these days.

Carol