Life with Siberian Huskies
The Journey is more important than the destination
Ring Tailed Varmit
It seems some of you like these, so here is one from my archives.
October 25, 2016
We had an incident around 1:30 AM this morning. I awoke to this God-awful sound and thought my Huskies had gotten into some kind of life or death fight over a chewy or something.
You know how you can usually tell what kind of commotion is going on by the voices you hear. This one had the Siberians throwing a fit in voices I’ve never heard before or since. I imagined it was somewhere between the sound of a cat being slowly ran over by a steam roller tail first, to several dogs being scalded with boiling oil.
I ran outside in the 40 degrees temp barefoot, in shorts, and a T-shirt with my flashlight in hand. The dogs are going absolutely nuts in the back corner of the fence. I look and cannot figure out what the heck is going on but they won’t stop.
In the corner, I see nothing and all three are screaming and whiling in circles that would make the Tasmanian Devil proud. It’s pitch black and I keep asking them “WTF is wrong with you guys?” Of course, they don’t answer and I look out with my flashlight to see if Deer are near the fence.
Finding nothing, I happen to scan up the fence with my light. At the very top which is about 8 feet off the ground and hanging on for dear life is a huge raccoon! He is an estimated 20 pounder, gnashing his white teeth, and hissing loudly. He does not look happy at all about his current situation.
He is hanging on the inside corner of the wire, and I wonder what to do about it. Keep in mind I just woke up and my bare feet are feeling the cold. In the meantime, the dogs will not stop their insanity. They are in full kill mode, and wanting that fat fellow to fall right down in the middle of their pack.
I’ve had experience with these ring-tailed varmints before and they can certainly hold their own especially when cornered. It is not a critter you want to get in contact with.
I see one of those aluminum poles for your swimming pool laying nearby so I grabbed it and gave him a poke to get him jump off the fence and escape. The whole time hoping he would jump off in the woods and not into the pack.
He hissed at me, as I prodded him several times amid the din of the dogs. Finally, he jumped off on the outside and landed with a large thump. 8 feet and a belly flop but it didn’t seem to bother him at all… into the woods he ran like a bear at full speed.
Denied of their prize the huskies want to tear down the fence and run him to ground. To a husky anything smaller than them qualifies as “Prey.” And I helped free their tempting prize of fur and fat.
All the rest of the night the dogs raced around at Zoomie speed. Back and forth and all around the property looking, and hoping for another raccoon encounter. The only good thing to come out of this was that the next day they were dog tired and zonked out. Not to mention unharmed by that ring-tailed burglar.
At least no animals or people got injured during this nocturnal adventure, and a word to the wise about these critters.
No joke, a raccoon can cause some serious damage to your dog or you. I have the scars to prove it from a pet raccoon when I was a kid. Watch out for vermin especially if you have a puppy. This was a big one but I think 3 Huskies would have dispatched him.
Even so, somebody would have taken some damage… and who needs another vet bill. And that’s not even counting the possibility of rabies.
Watch out for your dogs, there are lots of bad things out there in the dark.
Just another day at my Husky Haven.
TJ
Life with Siberian Huskies 