"Something moved in the garage when I was in there helping the guy lift [the furniture]," she said. "It was a racoon in an incredibly small cage. It was wet. It was filthy. It was skinny, aggressive."
When the man kicked the cage, McKenna asked what was going on. "He said: 'Oh, my stupid wife got it when it was eight weeks old for the kids - it is aggressive, we don't know what to do with it'.
So I said: 'Right. I'll take that with the furniture'." The incident, in late 2009, marked the beginning of Wildside Exotic Rescue - a centre near Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire that houses animals from meerkats to mountain lions, mostly from British homes.
Keeping such animals is not illegal - the Dangerous Wild Animals (DWA) Act 1976 permits private ownership with a licence from the council. But experts, charities and some owners are concerned that the act is failing the animals it is designed to protect.
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