Saturday, June 21, 2008

Huh. That's one big squirrel...

At the very core of his being, Samson is a predator. We feed him twice a day, with lots of puppy treats in-between feedings, but he still has a tremendous insticnt to hunt. If any creature wanders through our back yard, Samson expresses his displeasure by howling and barking at the door, as if saying to me, "Let me out! There is fresh protein in the yard and I want to kill it and eat it!" This morning was no different.

A little after 7AM, Samson was howling at our back door. He was clearly agitated as there were some squirrels, or so I thought, in the yard. I opened the back door and he took off for a tree in the back of our yard. I saw movement of a couple of small animals,
though one of the animals seemed large. To large to be a squirrel. I followed Samson to the tree, and I was right. That largeer animal was no squirrel. It was a racoon. Samson's hunting instincts kicked in and he circled the tree, barking at this interloper in his yard. While I have seen racoons in the wild before, I had never seen an example of Procyon lotor in our back yard. The racoon jumped from the tree to the top of a fence which rings a tennis court in an adjacent yard. I realized that Samson would be going nowhere so long as that racoon was cornered, and I also knew that the only way I would be able to bring Samson inside was with a leash. I went back inside to grab a camera and his leash, then I returned to where Samson had cornered the racoon.

I managed to capture a few images of the racoon, as well
as a nice shot of Samson proudly looking up at his quarry. I was able to calm Samson down and get him on a leash and bring him back inside. Samson was walking triumphantly next to me, quite happy with his work to chase the racoon out of his yard. Yep, at his core Samson is a predator.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

You tell that puppy to be careful. I think raccoons can be really, really mean when they want to be. Good shots, though. He does look a tad terrified dangling there at the top of the fence.

L.

Deirdre Honner said...

Good thing that I was in bed and hadn't a clue what was going on.....

Unknown said...

We see racoons pretty regularly here outside of Boston. I also caught a possum once. Long story but it involved a "Have a Heart" trap and animals eating soem of the produce we were trying to grow back there at the time. I ended up releasing him the next morning in the town forest.

Henry said...

Raccoons, as must of a pest as they can be, are immeasurably better to deal with than skunks. Just ask the HR Maven.