Well, at least so far, tonight is a lot calmer than last night was.
I was in my basement office, just shutting off my computer, and I heard the dogs playing just a little bit harder than they usually do, then I hear my wife scream "Oh No". I bolted up the stairs and my wife is standing by the sliding glass door to our back deck, we installed a magnetic screen earlier this year so the dogs could go in & out themselves.
Seems that our dogs caught a Raccoon on the deck, and the fight was going on fast & furious. My first instinct was to get a gun, but I soon realized I could not safely fire a shot w/o hitting a dog, so I ran down to the garage to get my Ironwood Walking Stick. Luckily, I had a long handle fish net right next to the walking stick, so I grabbed that also. We had to time it right opening the sliding door to go out cause we did not want them bringing it in to the house, they kept going back & forth on the deck at a very fast pace.
Somehow, I managed to get the net over the Raccoon, and then peeled the dogs off one at a time. The fight had lasted over 5 minutes, and went all over our 12 X 20 deck. The Raccoon had injuries he would not have survived, so I dispatched him with a high powered .22 pellet gun (can't shoot a real gun with houses on every 1/3 acre). To the surprise of both me and my wife, neither dog had any damage! The one had blood all over his belly, but it was not his blood.
The next day we noticed a 3" hole in the window screen that is above the deck, near the railing. I think the Raccoon must have done it, and the dogs (both were in the bedroom on the other side of the house) must have heard it and reacted.
Although my wife was horrified about what happened to the poor little critter (the two dogs basically used him like a pull toy), it is also good to know that the house has protectors that don't really sleep! Both dogs are Pit-Mix rescues from the shelter, and although they are both very friendly, I would never want to have to try to fend off both of them.
Back to Chainsaws!