Backyard brawl

[Ratboy]

Well,

I went to the grocery store and took the dogs with me. I come back home and King goes out in the yard, like he usually does after a ride. I hear him and Jake, one of the dogs next door barking, they sound really upset. I figured their two days of renewed friendship was over and they were hating each other again. They sound almost exactly alike, and they were alternating back and forth, not the usual "harmony" of snarling. I hear the neighbor's kids yelling so I go out and the oldest one says, "They have a big Raccoon!". Yep, it's a big one. Not one of the monsters I see around here once in a while, but big cat sized anyways.

Molly is already running by me at this point, and I knew it was gonna be bad. The coon is up against the fence and Jake is biting it in the ass while Molly and King are tag teaming it. He got Molly on top of the muzzle, and she flipped, and got seriously pissed off. King got him on the side of the neck, and when the coon turned his way, Molly grabbed it by the throat and started shaking it. The coon was screaming, and Molly pinned him on the ground and stomped on him, and then picked him up and tossed him about six feet and King bit him solid on the ass when he landed. The Coon was bleeding pretty badly on the neck and was about to go down when the neighbor's kid grabbed Molly's tail and she stopped cold. Once he had hold of her collar, I got King when he did a hit and run on the Coon,and it was over. There were all kinds of people watching from the other backyards. One of the kids next door was blubbering.

The neighbor called animal control and they wont come..until tommorow. That's a lot of help. I have the torn up Coon out there and I just went out and looked at him and he's pretty shakey, but alert. He snarled at me when I got about 10 feet from him and so I just went back inside. I'll look after dark, I sure hope the thing is dead or gone.

Total damage as far as I can tell. Molly's muzzle cut, and King has a tiny cut on his foot, that's it.

Molly really hates trespassers into "her" yard..to put it mildly

 

[Barb04]

I hope all the dogs turn out to be okay. What a horrible thing to come home to.

 

[Ratboy]

Well, King seems fine, but Molly seems to be kind of stove up. She has bad hips, but they never really bothered her before now, so maybe she just pulled a muscle or something. She needs her nails trimmed anyway, so I will try to get her into the vet in the morning and checked out.

It was the roughest fight I have seen since my friend's Coonhound caught a Coon under the deck in the back of his house. That Coon was twice the size this one was, but my friend's dog offed him pretty quickly. We had to take the dog in and get him sewed up, he had a couple of really nasty cuts on him.

The Coon is gone, I checked a couple hours ago..I was dreading him still being out there.

 

[Ratboy]

Update!

The neighbor behind me woke up to her dog going nuts this morning and the Raccoon was sitting in front of her sliding glass door. He didn't look too good at all. She called animal control, and they took him away to get tested for rabies. He didn't seem to have any problems before he got mauled, but you never know.

Molly goes in Tues morning to get checked out. Her rabies vacc was just done, so there isn't much to worry about. She's walking a lot better, but still seems kind of stiff.

 

[DanL]

The rabies would be my concern. It's not normal for a coon to come that close unless it's used to being fed by people. Good thing all the dogs have their shots.

 

[Ratboy]

Looks like the Coon got Molly on her back leg, probably at the point where she entered the fight. It's not bad and is already healed up for the most part. I really would be surprised if the Coon had rabies, he was probably "caught" up in the tree at dawn when myself and the neighbors let our dogs out. And he showed no signs of any problems before Molly mauled him badly, unlike the one in the front yard a couple years ago that appeared to be "drunk", and mistakenly walked himself into another neighbor's yard where their white German Shepherd, huge black Lab, and even bigger yellow Lab/?? mix were more than happy to tangle with him. I didn't see it, but I sure could hear it. Those 3 dogs were worse than Molly about non dog and person intruders into their yard. The Lab mix knocked me flat once when I was chasing King when his leash just broke. I never saw him until he was in mid air. All three of them got on top of me and just wanted to wrestle.

King an Molly were kind of acting funny and looking up towards the tree come to think of it. Possums are the usual critters they catch like that, but I suppose in 22 years that catching a Raccoon was way overdue, considering how many there are around here. There was a orphanage nearby that was torn down a year ago, and the Raccoons that were living inside the abandoned buildings went hunting for new places to live, and they were all pretty fearless of people. I would bet he was one of them. Some of the ones I saw looking out of the windows were huge, twice the size of the one in my backyard a couple days ago, and he was big cat sized.