Three freakin’ forty-five this morning I ended up with a major asthma attack because of Fenris, our beagle. He sleeps with our daughter but at 3:45 he head-butted our bedroom door and came trotting on in, disgustingly wide awake and happy. My husband showed him the way out, closed the door most of the way… and then about 1 minute later the dog reappeared. This in not normal behavior for him, so I had to assume he was in desperately in need of a quick visit to the yard.
No sooner did he get one paw on the deck than he started baying, our other dog immediately behind. They cornered a really pissed off raccoon. It wasn’t that long ago that they cornered one and then our big dog, Thor, killed it. Fenris might have yapped it to death, given the chance. The only footwear near at hand was a set of flip flops, so at 3:45 in the morning, I went charging into the yard in my flip-flops, armed with nothing more than a broom. I’m still not sure how I managed it, but I separated the dogs from the raccoon and managed to bodily wrestle the big dog a few feet away. While I was doing that, the beagle tried to take on the raccoon, but that round went to the raccoon. It was at least half the size of our beagle, and spitting mad. After discovering it was a lot more challenging than he expected to take on the raccoon, my beagle retreated. He was probably hoping Thor would finish the job while he yapped him on. By dragging Thor back a few feet the raccoon had the opportunity to skinny up and over the fence. I had to drag our dog Thor across the yard and up the stairs to the deck. Once we got inside I realized I could hardly breathe. Asthma attack. Even using my inhaler, I ended up lying in bed, coughing, for another hour while I imagined over and over the raccoon turning on me when I got so close to break up the fight.
Needless to say, we’ll double-check before letting the dogs out at night again. This is the third time in about as many months. They come for the dog food, usually. It’s in a sealed container but they’ve discovered if they knock it over the lip pops off and dinner is served. The bird feeding station is probably just another enticement.
