diff --git a/requests_mock/compat.py b/requests_mock/compat.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b6e624f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requests_mock/compat.py
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+# not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
+# a copy of the License at
+#
+#      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
+# WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
+# License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+import requests
+
+
+def _versiontuple(v):
+    return tuple(map(int, (v.split("."))))
+
+
+_requests_version = _versiontuple(requests.__version__)
+
+
+if _requests_version < (2, 3):
+
+    # NOTE(jamielennox): There is a problem with requests < 2.3.0 such that it
+    # needs a httplib message for use with cookie extraction. It has been fixed
+    # but it is needed until we can rely on a recent enough requests version.
+
+    class _FakeHTTPMessage(object):
+
+        def getheaders(self, name):
+            return None
+
+    class _FakeHTTPResponse(object):
+
+        def __init__(self):
+            self.msg = _FakeHTTPMessage()
+
+        def isclosed(self):
+            # Don't let urllib try to close me
+            return False
+
+    _fake_http_response = _FakeHTTPResponse()
+
+else:
+    _fake_http_response = None
diff --git a/requests_mock/response.py b/requests_mock/response.py
index 7c7836d..4b707ed 100644
--- a/requests_mock/response.py
+++ b/requests_mock/response.py
@@ -16,6 +16,8 @@ from requests.adapters import HTTPAdapter
 from requests.packages.urllib3.response import HTTPResponse
 import six
 
+from requests_mock import compat
+
 _BODY_ARGS = frozenset(['raw', 'body', 'content', 'text', 'json'])
 _HTTP_ARGS = frozenset(['status_code', 'reason', 'headers'])
 
@@ -87,7 +89,8 @@ def create_response(request, **kwargs):
                            reason=kwargs.get('reason'),
                            body=body or six.BytesIO(six.b('')),
                            decode_content=False,
-                           preload_content=False)
+                           preload_content=False,
+                           original_response=compat._fake_http_response)
 
     response = _http_adapter.build_response(request, raw)
     response.connection = _FakeConnection()
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index c79b909..289b82a 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-requests>=2.3
+requests>=1.1
 six