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Community Comment: Living on the rural edge has its challenges

Just don’t feed raccoons, because they will take much more than you will give
Angry raccoon
Community Columnist Brad Sherwin has an account of his dog's encounter with raccoons on Father's Day.

We live in one of the greatest places on earth. Surrounded by farmland, there are so many open spaces where others have buildings and industry. We have little to complain about.

Every once in a while, one gets a reminder of how close we are to nature, and how we have infringed on it as well. I had one of those reminders on Father’s Day.

We took advantage of the warm (not too hot) weather and had family over for the first time in a long time. It was special, since it was the first time since I can remember when my kids, nieces and nephews could not only see their grandparents, but give them a hug as well. It was shaping up to be a perfect, almost post COVID-19 day.

Our dog was excited too. Moka is a tiny little thing, almost 14-years-old, but still has a lot of pep to her. She was outside greeting everyone, but then disappeared for a moment.

The next thing we knew, she was in a woodpile, and she wasn’t alone. A raccoon was there, and as we found out later, she was there with her cubs. After a lot of screaming and a few things thrown to distract the raccoon, our dog emerged, and not unscathed. Traumatized, she ran into the house, with the family following her.

We were able to contact Tina Gemienhardt from the Tsawwassen Animal Hospital. She had a look at our pup, and took her for an examination. The next day she performed surgery to deal with a broken jaw and a few punctures and scrapes. A little over a week later, Moka’s well on the mend, thanks to Tina.

As I tell my neighbours to keep an eye out, they have shared stories of their raccoon encounters. One had a raccoon enter her house and steal her strawberries right off the kitchen counter. Another had one face-to-face in his shed. Pretty bold.

As I looked up the term for baby raccoon, the post said ‘besides cute?’ Sure, they are cute, until they kill. They are wild animals, scavengers that can be deadly. Feed them at all and they will never leave, just have more babies and call your yard, or your neighbour’s yard, home. Their feces can be fatal to animals and humans alike. That doesn’t sound that cute to me.

We were very lucky. We thought we had lost our companion who was only trying to protect us, as much as a 10 pound dog can.

Want to feed an animal? There’s lots of ducks at Centennial beach. Just don’t feed raccoons, because they will take much more than you will give.

Brad Sherwin, MBA is a long-time resident of South Delta, and has over 30 years’ experience in marketing, public relations and business strategy. He teaches Marketing at Douglas College, coaches hockey goalies and is Past President of Deltassist.