From our archives: Meet the man who showers with his pet raccoons
'It's no different than a house cat,' said Mark Brown of his pet raccoons Rebekah and Gunshow
Update, Oct. 1, 2019: Bodhi the cat may only be a year old, but he has already lived more in one life than most cats live in all nine.
Recognizing his adventurous spirit, Michelle Gagnon has taken Bodhi with her to explore the Rocky Mountains around their home in Canmore, Alta.
In terms of his desire to explore, Bodhi is a obviously a rare breed of cat. But he's a common type — a Maine Coon.
It reminded of us of another unusual human-pet relationship As It Happens learned about a few years back.
Read our story from As It Happened: The Archive Edition, published Aug. 13, 2014, about Mark Brown and his YouTube-famous companions Rebekah and Gunshow.
Mark Brown loves his pets. He lets them sleep in his bed. He even dances and showers with them.
Brown's pets are raccoons.
In the summer of 2013, YouTube videos of Brown and his pets went viral. That's when state authorities in Tennessee seized one of the raccoons, Rebekah. And that's also when As It Happens guest host Laura Lynch spoke with him.
Brown did not have the proper paperwork to keep raccoons at home. But he said the animals were easy for him to handle.
"Everybody has their niche. Everybody has their calling. I just happen to be good at knowing raccoon behaviour," he said.
"It's no different than a house cat. If you get them at an early age, especially when their eyes are closed, then they are imprinted. They don't know that they are raccoons," he told Lynch.
"I don't recommend anyone going out and catching a raccoon that is already partially grown or still with its mother because, them things, they'll rip your face off."
His talent for domesticating raccoons prompted some to call Brown "The Raccoon Whisperer." But he says he didn't train Rebekah to shower with him. That was her idea.
"One day I happened to leave the door open and, next thing I know, she was in the tub and she kept clawing at my leg, so I put her up on my shoulder," he said. "Then it got to where, if she wasn't asleep or preoccupied, here'd she come, she's right in the shower with me."
It was much the same when his other raccoon, Gunshow, started dancing with him. Aretha Franklin's Respect was playing, and Brown and Gunshow just began grooving.
"He loved to have fun just as much as I did."
Brown was hoping the governor of Tennessee would intervene to help him get Rebekah back.
"He can free a prisoner that has committed murder, and all I ask for is a pardon."
Hear Mark "Coonrippy" Brown and more "one of a kind" interviews in this episode of As It Happened:
- Mike the rooster, who lost his head and lived for more than a year.
- The creators of musical instruments called the hosaphone and the humongophonium.
- Cheeses made from bacteria from the human body.
- A baby born to parents who had both been surgically sterilized.