Raccoon Nation..coming to your neighborhood.

Glad the dog's okay, and hope it's learned it's limitations too. Some need hard lessons to learn them sadlly.

Different 'pest' but funny story, I hope.

We have birds we call Plovers but are Lapwings, that screech and holler day and night, and attack all passers by when they have chicks around. They're ground nesters and the chicks make their own dining arrangements from whatever they can catch in the grass, under the protection of the parents. Unfortunately they breed all year round. This is the third hatching I've seen since Christmas!
The ones here have been dive bombing the dog and anything else that moves, I just put the hose on them to settle them usually but haven't been out in the yard lately so they've gotten cheeky.

My cousin was up the other day and was spraying weeds for me when I heard the Plovers kicking up a din and thought uh oh, forgot to warn him.
Next thing he's at the door saying "ever seen one of these close up?" and had one of their chicks in his hand! It was the cutest thing, only about the size of a sparrow and yelling it's head off.

We had a good look and a play with it then he took it back out and turned it loose to run back to Mum. We never heard another sound from them all day! They haven't even been up this end of the street since. That sure worked! They've learned that it may be okay to terrorize tourists and kids but never mess with a farmer!

He'd done the same with a pair that were hanging around the farmhouse. He grabbed a chick and pretended to eat it and reckons the mother had a heart attack.
He let it go and the whole family has moved to another paddock about half a mile away.



Speaking of airborne attack, keep your heads down Aussies, I swear I just heard a Magpie chick, starting early this year??










 
Kangaroos do too, if they can beat dogs to a dam they go out in the middle and hold the dogs under when they swim out. It's about the only smart thing I've ever heard of roos being capable of. They can stand up to 6ft tall on tippy toe so can go deep. They can swim okay too, they've even been spotted in the sea crossing to nearby islands. I hope you Americans are amazed by this news. I was. I only learned that a few years ago.

http://www.kangaroo-protection-coalition.com/kangaroo-swim.html
 

TWHRider said:
There is only a select few dogs qualified to tango with a Raccoon. There are several varieties of Coon Hounds, these are Walker Coon Hounds and very expensive. Serious coon hunters spend more money for a good coon dog than what it costs for a paint job on a classic car. That means many of these dogs wear GPS systems.

They know how NOT to end up in a vet's office but a really good Coon dog is the one who tangles with a coon in the water and wins. Coons have been known to drown dogs ---- no kidding:(

Click to expand...

TWH I used to coon hunt and we had lots of coon hounds. We had Walkers, Blueticks,Red bone, and Black& tans. I've seen one Raccoon whip four of them at a time and get away leaving the dogs bleeding.

In the old days they had "coon on a log" contests where a raccoon was put on a log in the middle of a pond and the dogs were sent out one at a time to see which could do the best job of getting the "coon. Some dogs did get drowned by the "coon.
 
My neighbor hunts with Walkers..this kid lives to coon hunt, he does the competition hunts. He gave us the traps to catch the coons and wanted us to turn them loose near his property (his family has several hundred acres). We turned a few loose there, but I think he lives too close, straight down the creek from us. We turned a few loose on his land, but now take them further away.

I have another one in the pipeline that we are trying to catch. He's been in the shed getting into the corn and licking the cat food bowls clean...

Hubby spied him up in the pasture looking at my watermelons one night last week...If he eats those he will become an endangered specimen of his species. Traps out in different places for two nights now, and no results. A slippery one, but he'll mess up.

images
 
TWHRider said:
There is only a select few dogs qualified to tango with a Raccoon. There are several varieties of Coon Hounds, these are Walker Coon Hounds and very expensive. Serious coon hunters spend more money for a good coon dog than what it costs for a paint job on a classic car. That means many of these dogs wear GPS systems.

They know how NOT to end up in a vet's office but a really good Coon dog is the one who tangles with a coon in the water and wins. Coons have been known to drown dogs ---- no kidding:(
Click to expand...

Interesting and cost prohibitive . . . She's a typical Heinz 57 and old enough to "know better?" and from what I'm told was fighting with it in their pond so scary to know she could have drowned. !@#%^&*!!! I'm am NOT a fan of raccoons no matter how deceptively "cute" they appear. Little bastards!
 
Diwundrin said:
Kangaroos do too, if they can beat dogs to a dam they go out in the middle and hold the dogs under when they swim out. It's about the only smart thing I've ever heard of roos being capable of. They can stand up to 6ft tall on tippy toe so can go deep. They can swim okay too, they've even been spotted in the sea crossing to nearby islands. I hope you Americans are amazed by this news. I was. I only learned that a few years ago.

http://www.kangaroo-protection-coalition.com/kangaroo-swim.html
Click to expand...

Beginning to think I'm no longer a fan of kangaroos . . .
 
GOT ONE !!!!

I was sitting in my living room when the motion light went on in front of our house.. I looked out the window to see 2 racoons just standing there.. I grabbed my .22 and opened up the front door.. Took one shot and dropped one racoon.. The other one seemed to get away..
I use a high power hollow point and that poor racoon had a hole in it the size of an orange.. Instant death !!!!!
 
Oh yes, you better believe it but I seem to have the upper hand on those pesty raccoons in my area..
I have already eliminated quite a few so far and I have almost none coming around the house any more..
Should one come, I have a present for it.. One shot !!!!!
 
Steve, I hate to, but may have to resort to that. I live in fear of the diseases and roundworms they carry, and can be passed on to dogs and humans. If it weren't for that I could live and let live and be satisfied to relocate them. Also, I don't want them tearing into my dogs in an altercation. Came too close to that already, recently.
 
I understand the caution about wild mammals in the US. On a visit to the Grand Canyon I was very taken with the cute little animals that I guess were prairie dogs (or something similar) but was informed that they might be carriers of plague. That shocked me totally and I left them strictly alone. I already knew about rabies but never countenanced plague in my wildest dreams. Neither disease exits in OZ and thanks to our very zealous quarantine service I think we won't be seeing them in the foreseeable future.

In California we stayed in a tent cabin and there were signs asking us not to leave food out for the racoons.
It killed me but I did comply. I would have loved to have seen one.
 
Are you available as a hired gun, Steve???

Unfortunately, although I am in the country, any gunshots around here will draw the law in a heartbeat.
 
Where I live I can fire a cannon and nobody will hear it..
Our village doesn't have a local police force but we are patrolled by the Provincial police that comes around only on February 30th and on April 31st..
 
TWH...lucky you, but I don't think the cats have anything to do with it. I have five cats and have caught then sitting up on the shelf while the raccoon is chowing down the food in their bowls, or they all sit around out in the driveway together under the moonlight.

racky and kitty.jpg

I have to come up with a new plan. The trap has been set for several days now in the shed, with tasty morsels and no raccoon, even though it is evident he is still coming in. I have to change tactics, but it's been raining for three days now and don't want to put the trap outside where the food will wash away. HEHHHEEHHEHH..I will get you my little pretty, and when I do....
 

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