People ask me if I’m ever afraid living part time in Sonoma surrounded by wildlife. “Ha!”, I say, “the dangerous animals are in the City!” Yes, we had another raccoon stand-off. Yes, it again involved Oscar, our youngest terrier. And this time it took Andy, our carpenter friend Dino, San Francisco Animal Control, and assorted power tools to bring everyone safely home.
Our backyard in San Francisco is completely covered with decking and butted up to our neighbors’ fencing and houses. Which means that anything that manages to get into the crawl space under the decking — oh, say raccoons, skunks, terriers –is completely inaccessible to the anxious owners and annoyed neighbors above. We can only pace overhead and listen to the snarls, barks, and scary scuffling sounds. After the last time Oscar chased a raccoon under the decking, we brought in a team of carpenters to completely seal off all access — at least from our side — for anything larger than a city mouse.
Apparently, we forgot that hundreds of years of genetic selection have gone into the breeding of a Smooth Fox Terrier — breeding that predisposes them to wriggle through the tiniest opening after furry critters, corner them and never back down until one of them has lost most of his blood volume. In the past, if a Smooth Fox Terrier even hesitated when the fox was biting his face off, well, that’s a dog that didn’t get bred for the hunt. Very impressive in a fox hunt or a war zone. Not so good for a pet in the city.
Animal Control didn't contribute much but this Critter Extraction Lasso. It was enough.
So back to that sealed off decking. For a terrier, no big deal. Here’s what took about 5 seconds: dog let out into the backyard, dog starts high-pitched yapping, owner realizes an animal is under the decking, dog rips out part of the wooden barrier with his teeth and dives into the crawlspace under the deck. The snarls and terrier shrieks were truly terrifying, so we wasted no time bringing out the big ammo.
Andy started trying to pry up planks. I called our carpenter friend Dino who has the truly impressive power tools and a call was made to Animal Control. You ever get up close and personal with a raccoon? These ain’t no sweet little Disney characters. A good sized raccoon could rip your face off. Unfortunately our Animal Control Officer was keenly aware of this fact. When he arrived, at about the time we’d pulled down half the fence and realized there were actually two raccoons under the deck, he just handed his critter lasso to Dino. It was clear his policy was: “Hey lady, they just don’t pay me enough.”
We're all pretty shaky after the Great Dog Extraction. (Can you see how relieved the Animal Control Officer is that he didn't have to fight raccoons?)
Long story short, dog extracted, humans beat a hasty retreat back indoors leaving raccoons (we hope) to go away on their own. Dog inspected and found to be intact with no bites. All repair to our downstairs bar. Much vodka needed and consumed. Dog comes off his adrenalin high and crashes into deep sleep.
Next project: we’re sealing up that deck like Fort Knox. Maybe with two by fours. Maybe with sheet metal. I’m still not betting against the terrier breaking through should another set of varmints show up.
We leave those scary raccoons alone to find their own way out of our destroyed fence.
And repair to the bar for a much-needed vodka. (Shown Carpenter Dino who handled the actual Terrier Extraction.)
Glad you were able to free Oscar and take him inside where he could have raccoon hunting dreams while his humans got snonkered.
Our Jag flushed out a mouse this morning from under the television shrine. He is a wonderful guard cat. Mouse dispatched via trap toot sweet.
I think the same prolific rains that overplumped the plums back yonder helped get the little mouse into the house.
What is it about heavy rains and Mouse-capades? Our El Nino rains brought herds of mice into the house.
Bastards!! We have them, all over the place.
When our elderly malamute was ailing, we used to leave the deck door cracked open enough for him to go out in the middle of the night. He’d kept the raccoons at bay for so many years in his prime, it took us a while to realize that they’d copped to the fact that he was no longer a hindrance to them.
One night my husband encountered a raccoon on the kitchen table!
Another time I discovered the Tupperware bin full of dog food out on the deck….hmmm….had I moved it out there when cleaning the kitchen floor and not moved it back? Then I noticed the raccoon paw prints on the floor and on the boards of the deck.
Little bastards had tried to carry off my bin of dog food!!!!
That’s a great picture of the raccoon. Most times the pics show them all sweet and cuddly looking but this pic shows the real deal if you get them cornered or heck if you interfer with what they want to do.
I wish I could lay claim to that image. But like many pictures, it’s floating around in Google Images and I couldn’t find any source to credit it to. Then again, I don’t think I’d ever want to get that close to a raccoon’s teeth.
We live in Belize… I would rather deal with the occasional 8 foot boa constrictor than that raccoon!
And a lovely and informative blog you have, Drew, about Belize — one of my favorite vacation destinations. Check it out everybody!
whoa! Give me an angry raccoon over anything slithery any day! (Not that I wouldn’t give the raccoon, angry or happy, a wide berth no matter what.) They ARE so cute but..so are Mtn Lions.
So glad that Oscar was unscathed. I could use an Oscar to eradicate the blankety-blank rodents that are harvesting my tomatoes. Phoebe tries but she isn’t as quick as a terrior.
By the way, love the little thumbnails you’ve given us. LOL
Yikes. Glad the pup lived to dream about chasing raccoons…
Glad Oscar did not get his face ripped off.
5 rattle snakes in 4 months trumps 2 raccoons in one night. : )
Did the animal control officer join you all for a drink?
No, he was too anxious to get away before someone made him deal with an animal.
I’m catching up on your blog and just read about your SFT’s experience with the raccoons. My Buddy Wiser is a WFT with the same fierce determination to kill all varmints. We live in Sherwood, AR which is a part of metropolitan Little Rock. Our large yard is surrounded with a 6 ft. privacy fence. We are early risers. Buddy Wiser & his partner in crime, Sweet Tea (a wire haired Boston Terrier mix) startled a momma raccoon & teenager not long ago at 4:00 a.m. All I hear is extremely high pitched barking. I grab the flash light and head for the lower 40. The young raccoon is up a tree. Buddy Wiser and Sweet Tea are tag teaming Momma Raccoon who outweighs them both by 20 pounds. Sweet Tea is no fool; she goes for the rear end. Buddy Wiser wants the throat. I’m adding my screams to the dogs’ screeching barks, while I try to get between dogs & Momma, so she can get up a tree. Just as she starts to climb, Sweet Tea grabs her tail and pulls her down. All the neighbors’ lights are coming on and I’m certain they are dialing 911 and reporting a murder. This went on a while, but I did fnally get the raccoon up a tree and the dogs in the house. Sweet Tea didn’t have a bite on her. Buddy Wiser was covered in blood. The vet eventually found 11 puncture wounds, none serious. We now scan the yard with a powerful flashlight, stomp feet, yell, and clang a cowbell each morning before letting the dogs out into the dark. The neighbors haven’t complained. I guess they prefer the short period of noise to sustained screaming & screeching.