Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Guess what I Found!

I was working in the front yard. Ray was yelling in the back yard.

As always, I let him go to it for a bit. After all, dogs must bark even if their 'bark' is more along the lines of a foghorn crossed with a seal. After a few minutes, when I realized that not only was Ray not stopping, he was using his "I FOUND SOMETHING" voice, I put down my rake and went to investigate.

I'm telling you, there's something there!

OMG, this is SO exciting.

Ray was in the back corner of the yard near the shed, his nose pressed through the weathered wooden slats of the fence, his tail wagging. As I watched, he pulled his snout out, raised his head to yell, did a little dance, then stuck his nose back through the fence.

As I walked towards him I wondered what had caught Ray's attention. This winter, a kamikaze squirrel moved into our shed. It launches itself at whomever opens the shed door and the noise it has been making inside its living quarters has been driving the hound crazy. But Ray wasn't yelling at the shed, he was yelling through the fence at our behind-us-and-over-one neighbor's shed. I wondered if they had a kamikaze squirrel too. I also noticed a newly-dug mole trail through part of yard and wondered if maybe he had tracked the mole somewhere.

"What's up, Ray?" I called to my dog as I got a bit closer.

Ray turned, and with his mouth open in a big grin, excitedly pranced to me, then back to the fence looking over his shoulder with a "You gotta see this," glance.

I followed the dog to the fence and peered sideways through the board-on-board slats. I saw nothing.

Ray, danced back and forth letting loose with deep from the belly yells.
"Well, whatever it was is gone," I said to my dog.


Ray didn't believe me.

There! Did you hear that?
Tail wagging, panting with excitement, Ray danced and yelled.

I turned from the fence, "C'mon, Ray," I said to the excited dog as I walked away.

Ray ignored me.

"Ray, come," I said sternly.

Ray ignored me some more, yelling and dancing.

I turned back to retrieve my dog and drag him away when out of the corner of my eye, through the fence, I saw movement. I stopped. An animal was slinking along the fence towards our neighbor's shed. The color of the animal was similar to most other woodland creatures but the pattern of the ringed tail was unmistakable.

Ray, the Redtick Coonhound, had found himself his first raccoon.

(Here's about 30 seconds of yelling. It went on for over an hour. I kept dragging him away and, although I hated to do it, I finally had to lock him up in the house.)

14 comments:

  1. HI Ray
    You did a pawesome job off showing your human what you had found :) Congratulations on your first racoon :) Milo & Jet

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    1. Thank you. Ray was pretty proud of his find and hasn't yet given up on actually scaring the thing to death with his yell.

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  2. It's like he was saying "Who is the Coonhound here, woman?"

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    1. Oh yeah. He totally knew what he was doing. I had to apologize for doubting him.

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  3. Oh how exciting - Ray's first coon! He'd make a mighty fine hunting partner should you ever decide to take up coon hunting! (But my version of coon hunting has you feeding the coons berries and not actually shooting them.)

    And by George - you are correct - he does totally sound like a weird species of foghorn/seal!! I can't believe you listened to that for an hour. You must really love him. :)

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    1. I know! It was exciting! Our version of coon hunting is a lot like yours. Not sure how Ray feels about that though.

      Earplugs work. I've been thinking of buying a few dozen pairs and handing them out to the neighbors while the coon continues to live around here. I'm guessing he won't last long, though, without access to earplugs himself.

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  4. I think it's your moral duty to register Ray as a backup in case there's a power cut next time the sea haw attacks downtown Fairfax ;0)

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    1. I would definitely register Ray if I knew what the hell a sea haw was.

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  5. That is too funny & OMG what a voice Ray has!!

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    1. If you want to see and hear more of Ray, go to youtube and search on Ray the Blind Dog. Or search this site using the search term "video alert"

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  6. GOOD BOY!! You knew what you smelled didn't you Ray? You are what you are and you, dear sir, are a COONhound. Way to go Ray!! Proud of you!

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  7. Ah, the memories - at least no one called the police :)

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    1. hahahahahahahaha. I have faith that it will happen one day. At least it will give me something to blog about.

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