I'm reposting this because I have a lot of new contacts who don't understand the "meaning" behind my icon so here it is. It all started with this story, one of my first on Gather:
Check the comments. It was a good one. Fade to black. Bye, Gather, for now.
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Comments: 38
Thanks for giving me a good laugh!
Never had a problem with racoons anywhere near the house, but I remember one morning when I let my three big dogs out before I went to work, the dogs just wouldn't stop barking no matter what I did. I couldn't figure it out, so went to work then 4 hours later when I came home they will still barking. I went out to the dog yard and sure enough in the big eucalyptus tree that hangs over from my neighbors yard, there was a terrified racoon. Once I put the dogs in the house he was able to leave, then I was able to put them out there again and all was quiet. he must have gotten up there in the night when they were in the house and gotten quite a shock the next morning when I let them out.
I had raccoons visit us last summer and got a kick out of throwing marshmallows to them every night while they would wave for me to throw them more, until the night I ran out of marshmallows and after scratching at the door and realizing they weren't getting any that night, they dumped my trash cans, tore up my flowers and ripped the screens on my bedroom window to let me know they were not happy.
10 for you this was great.
next. To tell the truth, I had some sympathy for that raccoon who was probably surprised out of a good sleep, maybe even hibernating (DO they hibernate?) especially since I have a reputation for being grumpy when awakened. But I have never chased anyone around, growling, when I wake up. I'm too tired.
I had a pet racoon for a year in college. Great animal and SMART.
Here's what I learned: if you want to keep a raccoon out of something (like a garbage can or the Dean's kitchen) you need to use a combination lock and it needs to have more than three numbers.
Victoria - I'll try to post the dog story but it is longer than you'd think it'd be for a dog that took a flying leap from my lap to the roof in under a second flat.
It reminds me of the time I was in Wa. I hadn't been there long and was chatting on the phone with my mom. Suddenly I hear a gun shot, really loud and really close. I wasn't used to that noise at all and I didn't have a really high opinion of the stability of my neighbors out in the boonies. I slowly crept up to the window and looked out towards the barn to see my BF's Dad holding up a huge Raccoon by the tail. He had shot it because it was getting into the chickens.
A few years ago a friend of ours came home from work to find raccoons in her kitchen. They got in through a pet door. They had spilled everything edible including a couple of different kinds of syrups. They were having a great time. She ended up having to hire a company that specialized in disaster recovery to clean up the mess.
She and her husband got traps from Animal Control. The animal control people would release the raccoons several miles away. The raccoons found their way back.
A full grown male raccoon can be pretty large. When they're annoyed they can take out a good sized dog and hurt a human pretty badly. I love them anyway. :)
I recall taking the dogs to the dog park on early winter morning with th eonly light being the big floodlight in the center of the dog park. I let the dogs go as usual in enclosed area, they promptly took of running like the lunatics that they are and as it turned out there was a raccoon in the enclosed area that for his sake he is lucky he got to the top of the fence.
I went and took the dogs away from him so he could get down from the fence and be on his way before there was hair and blood flying all over from the dogs and the raccoon.
One thought, though. Rabies. We had one wandering down our street in the afternoon, lumbering drunkenly all over the road. I've seen them before and they don't lumber drunkenly from side to side. They're very matter-of-fact about where they're going. So I tried calling Animal Control. Well, where we live, we DON'T have a local Animal Control, (nor a local police force) so we had to call the State Police (which are our local police force - have I lost you yet? No? Well, just wait. There's still time.)
I spoke to someone at the non-emergency number and she tells me to call, get this - ANIMAL CONTROL. Hello? We don't have Animal Control? So, call your (oh, come on, you know...) LOCAL POLICE FORCE. Uh, hello? We don't have a local police force - YOU PEOPLE are our local police force, so I'm calling you.
They sent an officer out. He shot the thing 3 times. THREE times. What? One bullet wasn't enough to kill it? The thing could barely stand up by the time the officer got there. He wasn't going to miss it. Overkill. Overkill of roadkill.
And then he just left it there.
I called a company that said it probably did have rabies and they would take it away for a fee, but it was on township property. So I called the township...
long story short (too late), it decomposed into the ground and I made the kids stay away from it.
I like raccoons. Just not rabid ones.
Thanks for commenting on this. I don't know why I didn't see it till now. Odd that I didn't get a "heads up" notice about it but I'm glad I saw it now. Usually I get a message that someone has left a comment. Thanks for yours, loved reading it. Yes, rabies seems to be on the rise again in some areas. We've seen rabid raccoons too :(
I'm laughing at that clever turn of phrase, Judi "Overkill of roadkill"
I woner if the repairman tells the story the same way?
O,K he probably leaves out the high pitched girly scream. LOL.