A 10-year-old girl from Richardson, Texas, had a surprise slumber party with a raccoon who crawled into her bunk bed Wednesday night.
Mattie Gelman woke up with him sitting right next to her head. She told her mom that he was gentle -- and even let the girl pet him!
“It’s weird because the first thing I said to it was, ‘Hey buddy." So, it was really calm. It didn’t hiss at me, bite me, scratch me or do anything like that," said Mattie.
In a picture, the raccoon poses for the camera while sitting atop pillows in the girl's bunk bed.
The family figured out that the raccoon crawled into the house through the doggy door. Though the family has four large dogs, two of which were out free in the house, none of them noticed the visitor.
“A leaf could blow by, and they’re gonna bark. They hear people talking two houses down and bark. But a raccoon comes through the house and they don’t smell it or notice it, so they can be dog shamed for that," said Mattie's mom, Sibyl.
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She said when Mattie first woke her to tell her about the visitor, she didn't believe her. Then she heard a scuffle in the hall as the dogs began to catch on before she saw him with her own eyes.
“My jaw dropped to the ground. The very first words out of my mouth were, 'Oh my God, it’s a raccoon!' And then, 'Where in the world did this come from? How did a raccoon get in here? Is a door open? Is there a hole in the wall? Where are the dogs? Is everyone okay?' And it was just sitting on her pillow looking at me like, ‘what?'” Gelman said.
After a failed attempt to lure the raccoon out with leftover Valentine's Day candy, Gelman said they managed to force it into a box to eventually release it in their front yard. She said he was never aggressive or scared.
According to the Humane Society, it's highly unusual for a raccoon to be aggressive toward a person, but people should still avoid touching wild animals.
NBC 5's Allie Spillyards contributed to this report.
