'Little Rick' Raccoon Adopted by Caring Human Parents Goes Viral

An older couple in Washington appears to have unofficially taken a hobbled raccoon into their care -- which has horrified their daughter ... but captured the hearts of thousands online.

Seattle sports radio host Stacy Jo Rost has documented this fur ball all weekend, who she calls "Little Rick" ... named after her stepdad. She says after having to put their family dog down 2 years ago, Rick Sr. and her mom have turned to the raccoon as a way to cope.

Basically, her folks have resorted to feeding Ricky here ... and the 1-year-old raccoon comes over to their property regularly for his meals, which are scheduled and on the dot, it seems.

Stacy posted a ton of videos capturing Little Rick's eating habits, including some hasty attempts at asking for more morsels ... by scratching at the window in what looks like an attempt to come inside. He even tried biting at Stacy's finger through the window pane!

Stacy says her parents found Rick when he was tiny, and they noticed his back leg was injured. So, it sounds like they started to attend to him -- from a bit of a distance, though -- and now ... LR comes by their place as a place of comfort and food, limping at that.

Like we said, you can tell SJR is not a huge fan of this ... pointing out it is, in fact, a wild animal and not a pet -- even though her mom and dad seem to be treating it like one.

Funny enough, if you hop into the Little Rick trend on Twitter ... you'll see a fair amount of people actually supporting the adoptive human parents, and arguing Stacy's being harsh.