This is Vitya the raccoon who boasts 200,000 followers on TikTok, likes to swim and travel thousands of miles across Russia by his owners who treat him “like a son”.

Olesya Shilyaeva and Evgeny Shilyaev told Newsflash that they were thinking of getting a dog when they came across a raccoon on Instagram and fell in love with the idea of owning one.

The couple then adopted little Vitya when he was only two months old from a nursery in Russia.

Olesya and Evgeny told Newsflash: “Vitya is a member of our family and we treat him like our son. We play with him, draw, swim, walk…”

The couple added that it is legal to keep a raccoon at home and that “special nurseries breed them”.

Olesya and Evgeny said: “Vitya draws pictures, travels by car and train, takes boat rides, gets to know other animals, takes part in sports at a real fitness club, does the laundry, helps with the housework, plays different games, goes fishing with us, goes with us to the forest to pick mushrooms and berries, and he also likes to swim in rivers, the sea and pools. Vitya leads a real life with us, like a person.

“The three most important points for keeping a raccoon are, 1. Give them personal space, their own room. 2. You need to devote a lot of time to the raccoon for games and walks. 3. Monitor their diet so the raccoon does not get fat. You cannot feed the raccoon fast food and sweets.”

It is common for raccoons to teach their young how to swim so Olesya and Evgeny are giving him lessons in a pool.

The couple also go on road trips across Russia and take Vitya along for the ride.

They told Newsflash: “We recently drove 7,000 kilometres with the raccoon in the car. We want to go with him to the city of Vladivostok and drive 30,000 kilometres.”

As well as 200,000 followers on TikTok Vitya has 35,000 fans on Instagram.