LATE-NIGHT FUN with our ANIMAL FRIENDS
Aug. 3rd, 2003 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spatchInterlopers! Abutters! Squatters! Transients! Raccoons!
Abbie flipped out early this morning around 4:30 or so. I had my deck door open to catch the cross-breeze and the night was rather nice. Abbie started jumping on the screen door, putting his paws up on the lower pane (which, thankfully, is some kind of plastic amalgamation and not a screen) and yammering excitedly and stuff. Normally he doesn't do the Gotta Go Out Dance, as he prefers to just sit by the door and make his escape if you open it up, so I realized something wasn't right.
So I got the flashlight and peered out the door and lo and behold there, on my third-story deck, were two raccoons. The larger of the two hissed at me and ran under the overturned sofa (long story, not my sofa, I want it gone) while the other one kept washing his little paws in some water that had collected in the plastic tarp. He didn't seem to care that I was shining the light DIRECTLY AT HIM. Abbie, meanwhile, had bypassed Nuts entirely and gone straight for Apeshit at this point, and was bound and determined to tunnel under the door if necessary to get at these interlopers.
Not that he could've done anything, really -- he's a creampuff. Martha, on the other hand, would've held her own quite easily against at least one pissed-off raccoon. One time in Reading when they discovered how to escape out a basement window, I watched little tiny Martha corner two big rough-and-tumble outdoor strays under a woodshed. She's a bad-ass cat. But not Abbie. Abbie cries if he can't find his way out of a paper bag.
Not wishing to pit any of the residents of the third floor against the raccoons, I tried to drive the raccoons away by banging on the screen door and hissing back at them. It didn't really work and the little raccoon showed me that he was leaving when he felt good and ready ... which, of course, was about forty-five seconds after I told him to go.
Really not sure why they bothered to climb up three flights of stairs to get to my deck, which has one (1) overturned sofa, one (1) ancient paint can, and one (1) cinder block resting on one (1) plastic tarp. Absolutely no foodstuff whatsoever. Perhaps the second floor neighbors have some food or garbage left out there, and the coons thought well hell, while we're in the neighborhood...
I named the big one Fuck You, as that's what he said to me, and I named the little one Go Away, as that's what I said to him. It will be interesting to see if they come back.
Abbie flipped out early this morning around 4:30 or so. I had my deck door open to catch the cross-breeze and the night was rather nice. Abbie started jumping on the screen door, putting his paws up on the lower pane (which, thankfully, is some kind of plastic amalgamation and not a screen) and yammering excitedly and stuff. Normally he doesn't do the Gotta Go Out Dance, as he prefers to just sit by the door and make his escape if you open it up, so I realized something wasn't right.
So I got the flashlight and peered out the door and lo and behold there, on my third-story deck, were two raccoons. The larger of the two hissed at me and ran under the overturned sofa (long story, not my sofa, I want it gone) while the other one kept washing his little paws in some water that had collected in the plastic tarp. He didn't seem to care that I was shining the light DIRECTLY AT HIM. Abbie, meanwhile, had bypassed Nuts entirely and gone straight for Apeshit at this point, and was bound and determined to tunnel under the door if necessary to get at these interlopers.
Not that he could've done anything, really -- he's a creampuff. Martha, on the other hand, would've held her own quite easily against at least one pissed-off raccoon. One time in Reading when they discovered how to escape out a basement window, I watched little tiny Martha corner two big rough-and-tumble outdoor strays under a woodshed. She's a bad-ass cat. But not Abbie. Abbie cries if he can't find his way out of a paper bag.
Not wishing to pit any of the residents of the third floor against the raccoons, I tried to drive the raccoons away by banging on the screen door and hissing back at them. It didn't really work and the little raccoon showed me that he was leaving when he felt good and ready ... which, of course, was about forty-five seconds after I told him to go.
Really not sure why they bothered to climb up three flights of stairs to get to my deck, which has one (1) overturned sofa, one (1) ancient paint can, and one (1) cinder block resting on one (1) plastic tarp. Absolutely no foodstuff whatsoever. Perhaps the second floor neighbors have some food or garbage left out there, and the coons thought well hell, while we're in the neighborhood...
I named the big one Fuck You, as that's what he said to me, and I named the little one Go Away, as that's what I said to him. It will be interesting to see if they come back.
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Awww :)
Date: 2003-08-04 03:29 pm (UTC)A few years back, when I lived in the burbs, my bedroom window was right next to the dumpster for our building. One Sunday morning I heard what I was sure was cussing and scrabbling out there and I decided to go take a look.
Inside our recently emptied dumpter I found two very frustrated little coons. They'd managed to get in but couldn't get out because there wasn't enough trash to give them a boost. They would run from one side of the dumpster to the other, leap up, claw furriously and then slide down. Scrabbling explained. After each failed attempt they would sit down, stare up over the lip of the dumpster and swear furiously at their failure.
I found a 2x4 laying on the ground next to the dumpster and slid it in at an angle like a ramp. It look our intrepid heros all of .03 seconds to figure out what they were supposed to do and they scampered up. As they reached the top (I am not making this up) they each gave me a little nod and something like a smile then scampered off accross the parking lot.
After that I often found them sprawled out on top of the garbage in the full dumpster napping and looking very satisfied. They'd always open there eyes a bit when I cam to see them but they never ran away or fussed at me for intruding.
Raccoons are cool.