Our Neighborhood
Jimothy
Ballard has produced a genuine celebrity, and he is a raccoon shaped like a loaf of bread. We’re the veterinary practice on his corner, so here is what we can and can’t tell you about him.
In July 2026 a video of an unusually round raccoon walking through Ballard went around the world. Someone called him Jimothy — a Seattle resident, Kiana Hall, told reporters that he and her husband looked at him and he was “just, like, a Jimothy to us” — and the name stuck in the way the right name does.
Within a week there was fan art, there were t-shirts, and a person in a raccoon costume ran the Mariners’ seventh-inning Salmon Run as Jimothy and won. He was still being filmed in October, crossing a fence between two houses and settling in on a roof. Neighbors have watched him amble over back decks, drink out of a dog’s water bowl, and sit in a tree like he pays rent.
We have no stake in this beyond being the animal hospital a few blocks from where he lives. But the two questions everyone asks about him are veterinary questions, so they ought to get a veterinary answer.
Why He’s That Shape
A veterinarian who watched the original video told KIRO 7 that Jimothy appears to have short spine syndrome: a rare condition an animal is born with, in which the vertebrae are compressed and partly fused. The spine ends up far shorter than it should be while the legs grow normally, which is why he reads as a tall, round animal with no neck. It limits how much he can turn and bend. It is not, in itself, fatal.
That is as far as anyone can honestly go. It’s a reasonable read of a phone video and nothing more — no one has examined Jimothy, ourselves included, and a condition of the spine is not something you confirm from across a street. If you see it written anywhere as a diagnosis, including on this page, it has been overstated.
Is He All Right?
The honest answer is that he appears to be, and that nobody can promise more than that. Wildlife officials who have followed the reports say he walks, climbs and finds his own food without help. For a wild adult animal holding down his own territory through a Seattle summer and into autumn, that is the measure that matters.
What would change the picture is the ordinary list for any animal: losing condition, going still and unresponsive, an obvious injury, or circling and stumbling in daylight. None of that has been reported. Being an odd shape is not, on its own, suffering — and the bar for intervening in a wild animal’s life is a great deal higher than finding him unusual to look at.
How to Be a Good Neighbor to Jimothy
Short version: enjoy him from exactly where you are.
- Watch him from wherever you already are — a window, a porch, across the street.
- Put your phone away if getting the shot means getting closer.
- Never feed him, and that includes “just this once”.
- Bring pet food and water bowls in overnight, and keep bins latched.
- Keep your dog leashed and let Jimothy leave on his own.
- Don’t try to catch him, box him, or move him somewhere “safer”.
Don’t Try to Rescue Him
The kind instinct is the one that hurts him.
Officials following Jimothy have said plainly that what worries them is fans trying to catch him. A healthy wild raccoon who gets boxed and driven somewhere loses his territory and his food, and Washington makes it unlawful to release wildlife elsewhere without a permit — so “somewhere safer” frequently isn’t an option at all.
A raccoon who is genuinely injured or sick is a different matter, and a job for people with a wildlife licence. That’s PAWS, whose wildlife hospital is now in Snohomish rather than Lynnwood: 425-412-4040. We’re a dog and cat practice and we don’t treat wildlife.
What a Raccoon Next Door Means for Your Own Pets
This is the part we can be genuinely useful about. Jimothy himself is no particular threat to your dog — but raccoons live in this neighborhood in numbers whether or not any of them is famous, and there are a few sensible things to have in place.
- Keep the distemper vaccine (DAPP/DHPP) current — raccoons are a major reservoir, and distemper kills unvaccinated dogs.
- Ask us about leptospirosis if your dog drinks from puddles or noses around standing water. It passes in raccoon urine and we recommend it for most Seattle dogs.
- Steer dogs and children away from raccoon droppings — raccoons use the same spot repeatedly, and the roundworm eggs in it are the real hazard.
- Flea and tick cover year round, which in this climate you want anyway.
- Any bite or scratch from a wild animal: wash it, then call your doctor and Public Health the same day.
On rabies, which is the first thing people raise: raccoons are a rabies reservoir in the eastern United States, but not here. In Washington the reservoir is bats, and the state Department of Health’s position is that rabies is not known to be endemic in raccoons, skunks or foxes — no rabid raccoon has ever been identified in Washington, with the honest caveat that surveillance in wild carnivores is thin. It is still worth avoiding bites from any wild animal, and any bite that happens is worth a same-day call to your doctor.
Common Questions
Is Jimothy in pain?
Nobody can answer that honestly from a video, and we would be making it up if we tried. What is on the record is that wildlife officials watching him say he walks, climbs and finds his own food, and that the condition he appears to have is not a fatal one. A wild animal who is feeding himself and getting around his own territory is, on the evidence available, coping. We have never examined him.
Can I leave food out for him?
Please don’t — it’s the one well-meant thing that genuinely rebounds on him. Food in one yard brings several raccoons to one spot, which is how disease spreads between them, and it teaches a wild animal to walk up to people. That is the point at which an animal stops being a neighborhood favorite and starts being reported as a nuisance. Washington also makes it unlawful to move wildlife elsewhere without a permit, so a raccoon who becomes a problem usually cannot simply be relocated.
Does The Family Pet treat Jimothy?
No. We’re a dog and cat practice and we don’t treat wildlife, so he has never been a patient here — we just happen to be the clinic on his corner. A raccoon who is injured or clearly unwell is a job for PAWS, whose wildlife hospital is in Snohomish and who can be reached on 425-412-4040. One of our own veterinarians, Dr. Carrie Schneider, worked for PAWS earlier in her career.
I saw him. Where do I report it?
Our sightings page collects them, and we’d love yours — date, roughly where, and what he was up to. Email reception@thefamilypet.org. The only rule is that nothing on that page should have involved anyone getting closer to him than they would have anyway.