Teach Soap

Raccoons! We all have had run ins with them. Last summer, a woman walking her dog in our biggest park was attacked by a horde of them - requiring over 70 stitches!

At 2 am last night, I hear a GOD AWFUL racket outside my window. I would describe it as a cross between a pig being slaughtered and two cats having sex. With GRUNTING thrown in. My first thought was some poor cat was being gutted by a raccoon. "OH my god" I think, "I am going to have to lie here and listen to some poor cat die a slow death!"

But then the grunting and loud thrashing of the shrubs makes me pause: "It is possible that someone around here owns a PIG and it got out? How the heck did wild boars make it to the Pacific NW?"

Then the fact I watch too much TV begins to kick in as the noise gets even louder. Between "American Horror Story" and "The Walking Dead" - my mind begins to race between zombies and escaped ex-Nazi scientist experiments!!! Don't laugh! We have been keeping our eye on a house very close to us that was bought, had a bunch of work done - INCLUDING BOARDING UP WINDOWS, a security system installed....but no sign of life for over a year. Now I'm sure they boarded up the windows so they could hide the illegal government genetic experiments in which the Army tries to merge the DNA of a man and a rhinoceros – creating a super-soldier with skin like armor! And now this failed genetic experiment has escaped and is rooting around my yard.

Now The Boyfriend is up – and of course, has to do the manly thing by getting a flashlight and going out to investigate. NOW I'm yelling out the window (by now most of the neighbors have been woken by the noise) “Be careful – watch out for the zombie/wild boar/genetic mutant – where is a shotgun when you need it???”

But in the end – it was just two teenaged raccoons play fighting. The Boyfriend chased them up a tall Douglas Fir with a flashlight. He tells me that every few feet, the raccoons would turn, stare at him, and growl at him – which I watched from the safety of my window.

Friggin raccoons. Friggin teenage raccoons!

Sounds like it could be a new TV show - Teenage Mutant Ninja Racoons!

We've got some pretty hefty coons around here, too. Not so bad now since our neighbor passed away - he used to feed EVERYTHING - stray cats, coons, birds, deer, etc. The coons would come right up onto his porch and sit next to him and wait for a treat. After he died they would wait on the porch and would stare at his wife whenever she went outside because they wanted to be fed and she wouldn't feed them. They finally departed after we fired a pellet gun at them a few times. Now they just like to raid my compost pile.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

When I was little, we lived in Northwest Missouri. We had a 2 story house, plus the attic and the basement (so if you finished them, it would be a 4 story LOL they were mostly finished anyway but I digress).

My bedroom was one of the largest ones - it also had the sunporch, walk-in closet, laundry chute to the basement, and the stairs & landing (with little closet) to the attic in it. At the top of the wall above the laundry chute next to the door to the hallway, was a painted over circular tube. We never thought of it.

Until one night during my school's Christmas break. About 2 am, I woke up to hearing this very loud scratching sound. I sat up and looked around. After about 30 seconds, the white "plate" covering the end of the tube popped out and a raccoon stuck his head out and chittered at me. I was about 8 years old and didn't know what to do. I sat in bed for 10 minutes screaming my head off for my mother who finally woke up and heard me. I would have run to her room, but that would have meant risking the raccoon jumping on me and I wasn't about to do that.

I think I ended up sleeping in her room that night. I don't think we ever caught it so I guess it worked its way back out the way it came.

Awesome stories folks - keep them coming! You are making my morning.

It was at about this time of year, and several years ago when this episode took place.

My old mastiff was still alive (and not old!) and my Giant Schnauzer was full grown by this time. It was after dark, and I had let the dogs out. They ran around the yard doing their business. I had propped myself against the fence between myself and one of the neighbors. The fence was six-foot chain-link on my side, and six-foot wooden privacy fence on my neighbors side.

So the dogs came gallumping back to where I was leaning against the fence, and proceeded to go absolutely bonkers. Barking furiously, growling, the whole bit. Now those neighbors had a son who was a teenager at the time. He used to sit up by his bedroom window (which was on my side of the house), and take one of those laser pointers and shine it on the ground, moving it around, which would seriously bug the dogs. So I looked up at his window, but I didn't see a laser or the boy. I looked back at my mastiff, and realized that his gaze was locked onto a point much lower than the kid's window. I turned my head back, and discovered that I was nose-to-nose with a youngish raccoon that was sitting on top of a fence post. And the poor thing was scared witless. He was trapped between the scary human and whatever those other big loud things with big teeth were. He was frozen in terror.

So I hustled the dogs back inside, and as my neighbors had a pit bull at the time, I went next door to tell them about the raccoon and suggest that they leave their dog inside for a bit. When I came back home, I left the dogs inside, but went back out to the backyard to see if the raccoon had gone.

No sign of it. I'm sure as soon as my back door shut while I was putting my dogs inside, the little raccoon bolted as fast as he could run. I walked up and down the fence a bit, but no sign, and not a peep did I hear.

The boy with the laser opened his window to see what was going on. I told him I'd seen a raccoon sitting on top of that fence post moments before. He pondered that a moment, and said, "It was probably a dog."

I told him, um, no, not likely. First of all, dogs can't really climb straight up six-foot fence posts. And secondly, even someone as nearsighted as I was at the time can recognize a raccoon from three inches away!

Never saw any raccoons again, and haven't seen any since. My old mastiff is gone, but I have two others, and still have the Giant Schnauzer. I suspect there is some kind of wildlife warning system letting it be known that mine is a yard to steer clear of.

Anita