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Over at Q's place, a nasty stench in part of the backyard today. At first I thought it might be from the neighbor's garbage bin. There had been a bad smell last week (or was it the week before?) too, but this time it was even stronger. So I looked around in case it was a dead animal. Yep, a dead raccoon, badly decomposed already.
At first I thought it would be best to dig a hole to bury it, but after reading some web pages about how raccoons may have various diseases and infections, and considering the dogs, I decided that bagging it and putting it out with the garbage (as suggested online) would be best. So with Q's help, we double-bagged it, put it in a cardboard box, and put it in the garbage bin out by the street. Tomorrow is garbage day.
I wonder if the dogs killed it, or if it was sick and died on its own. I had checked along the fence last Saturday (looking for holes made by the dogs), and didn't notice it then. So either it wasn't the cause of the smell last week, or it died in the bushes, and the dogs dragged it to the fence since then. I checked our records, and the dogs are up to date on their distemper vaccinations, as well as rabies. Phew.
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Serena got out of the yard again twice in the last few weeks. (After a good half year of no escapes.) Zorro has discovered that when she (somehow) untwists the wire ties which I used to attach the hex fence along the bottom of the chainlink fence, she can pull back the hex fence, giving her access to the 12" stakes and bricks in order to get them out of the way, and then she can push through the bottom of the chainlink fence. In the spot where she did this last week, I had to bend the thick metal fence wires back into their normal zig-zag pattern and *reweave* them to get them back to a semblance of fence-ness.
That was on the other side of the yard, not where the raccoon was. Zorro was out there last night again, barking at something.
Now I need to add more twist ties all along the fence, this time attaching them from the other side so that the ends of the twist tie wires will be *outside* where Zorro can't reach them as easily with her teeth.
At first I thought it would be best to dig a hole to bury it, but after reading some web pages about how raccoons may have various diseases and infections, and considering the dogs, I decided that bagging it and putting it out with the garbage (as suggested online) would be best. So with Q's help, we double-bagged it, put it in a cardboard box, and put it in the garbage bin out by the street. Tomorrow is garbage day.
I wonder if the dogs killed it, or if it was sick and died on its own. I had checked along the fence last Saturday (looking for holes made by the dogs), and didn't notice it then. So either it wasn't the cause of the smell last week, or it died in the bushes, and the dogs dragged it to the fence since then. I checked our records, and the dogs are up to date on their distemper vaccinations, as well as rabies. Phew.
.
Serena got out of the yard again twice in the last few weeks. (After a good half year of no escapes.) Zorro has discovered that when she (somehow) untwists the wire ties which I used to attach the hex fence along the bottom of the chainlink fence, she can pull back the hex fence, giving her access to the 12" stakes and bricks in order to get them out of the way, and then she can push through the bottom of the chainlink fence. In the spot where she did this last week, I had to bend the thick metal fence wires back into their normal zig-zag pattern and *reweave* them to get them back to a semblance of fence-ness.
That was on the other side of the yard, not where the raccoon was. Zorro was out there last night again, barking at something.
Now I need to add more twist ties all along the fence, this time attaching them from the other side so that the ends of the twist tie wires will be *outside* where Zorro can't reach them as easily with her teeth.
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Date: 2018-10-08 05:01 am (UTC)From:You have Houdini dogs.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-08 05:26 am (UTC)From:Apparently so. I'm just glad that the large one hasn't figured out that she could probably jump the fence without too much effort, if she tried.