Well I am overly tired this morning from my 3 am adventures.

I was awoken to the sound of the most viscious snarling barks I have ever heard from 7 month old Duke, followed by the only slightly less enthusiastic growling of my cousin's 10 year old female Rottie.

In case you guys are wondering, Duke and the Rottie are inside during the day and outside at night, they have an insulated doggie condo that I could have sleepovers in lol..

Ah. Back to the tale. I go outside and they are going bonkers at the culvert where we get the water in from the ditch behind our property. This is notuncommon as I had known from time to time that cornered critters found refuge there. Ah, well, I called the dogs back and went to take a look with my sleepy eyes and big mag-lite.. and behold! the biggest, darkest raccoon I have ever seen! It growled at me and I threw an apple at it (we have 6 apple trees in that portion of the yard) and it retreated into what I now know to be it's den.

I brought the dogs in the house for the night and this morning I went out to check on the raccoon. Well, there are 5 of them. The male is huge and almost black in color, the female a typical grey, with 3 normal colored babies. I located where they have actually dug a tunnel (or utilized a tunnel that was there already) that extends past the fenceline. I boarded up the entrances that are on the property side with intent to keep the dogs away from them.

Later today I have to enlist the help of my brother to catch and relocate the critters. They have been here for a while without any incident but now the dogs are very aware of their presence and to prevent injuries to the dogs and the possible death of several raccoons I am going to take them up to the woods and release them.

Wish me luck!

Awe ... That's awesome ... for both your dogs and the raccoon family! Good Luck!

Good luck relocating them...that's very caring of you.

Heh, well my brother wants to shoot and skin them and only relocate the babies. I rehabed two baby raccoons last year, I have a soft spot for raccoons that are not really causing any trouble. There is plenty of wilderness around here for them, and quite a bit of homes up in the woods that don't mind raccoons taking care of old garbage laying around.



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Great story, but not really appropriate to a board that is limited to DOGS.
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