2x golden 3

by William J. Gibson

In the photo above, Diamond is on the left, Shakespeare on the right.
2x golden is the ongoing saga of life with two golden retrievers both of whom are smarter than I am.

wakey wakey

It was earlier in the summer last year, that I took Shakespeare and Diamond out for a little swim. It was very early in the morning about 5:45 a.m. and I was not awake. Actually I was walking with my eyes covered in sleep and was stumbling down to the water, they having raced ahead as usual. I jumped down from the retaining wall and walked the last 60 feet over the shore grass and rocks. We have had low water the last few years in Georgian Bay.

I was concentrating on my feet and putting them one in front of the other and trying to wake up when I finally became aware that Shake was playing with something. I figured a dead fish or something, but as I my eyes focused I realized it was a baby raccoon.

I woke up in a hurry and spun around looking for mother raccoon. I have heard other dog owners talk about never letting your dog corner a raccoon. The raccoon will rip out your dog's throat in a blink.

No mom.

I yelled at Diamond and Shakespeare and ran them up to the cottage and inside.

I went back to see what was what with the baby raccoon. Well, he was not alone. Mom had partied hard and forgot to take home two little guys and two little sisters. The females being about half the size of their brothers. One of whom was trying to let me know that he was the meanest, orneriest raccoon that ever walked the earth.

I went back to the cottage to get my digital camera to take raccoon portraits.

The four of them were huddled in the rocks out at the end of my neighbour's and my shared breakwater. As I approached, tough guy got up and snarled some more. I took some photos of him and then decided to leave them alone.

I went in and a little later in the morning had a chat with the local SPCA. They suggested that Mom would come back and get them. I went out for a second look, I found that the group of little ones had gone. Either Mom had come for them or they had moved to better cover.

Some local history about the lot is necessary to my story: our cottage lot used to be a drainage, wood lot. The slope of the land from the cottages on either side and the back lots fed rain and runoff towards the centre of our lot. Before my parents bought the property in 1969, the water came under the road through a culvert. When we filled the lot in for a proper elevation to build our cottage, we had a digger come in and bury a culvert from the road all the way to the beach down the right side of the lot. It is about 130 feet in length. This has become something of a raccoon subway system for raccoons who don't like to cross the road. I suspect with the arrival of the dogs in the past few years, they probably like the subway even more.

The little ones were gone, so nothing more to worry about. I was wrong. As I turned to go back to the cottage, I spotted one lone baby raccoon about thirty yards away, out on a large rock in some four feet of water. This rock was some thirty feet from shore. And it was getting hot and the day was going to reach 28-30 degrees Celsius.

Another call to the local SPCA suggested that my worry about heat prostration might happen if he stayed out on his rock. So they suggested I try to get him to go to the spot where his siblings had hidden on the rocks. Mom might find him there.

For some reason I took a towel out in the water with me. Standing in 4 feet of water next to this rock, with a baby raccoon, all three pounds of him, snarling at about chest height, we talked over how we were going to improve his situation. After a few false starts, I tossed the towel so it covered him. He grabbed it. I pulled the towel and he was in the water. I then walked behind him as he swam away from me, cursing in raccoon over his shoulder. I was worried that all this commotion was going to wear him out, but thought that heat stroke on the rock was probably worse. As he swam, I adjusted my angle of shepherding to steer him in the right direction and he soon arrived at the breakwater, gave me the finger and hid among the rocks where his brothers and sisters had been. The next morning he was gone.

We have had some trouble with a raccoon and the garbage bins this year. I am convinced it is him.




Contents Copyright (C) 2001 William J. Gibson.
Articles and photos are Copyright (C) 2001 by their respective authors.
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