i'd still be heard screaming! a few years ago, around this time of year, made road trip to spend several days with sister in mountains. we were sitting on her deck in PITCH BLACK when we heard a snap!! that set her beagle howling and my "killer" doberman scratching at door to get INSIDE! sister got flash light, was leaning over deck rail (maybe 6' or so off the ground) and the raccoon appeared on top of very tall "stump"... at eye level. adventures in wildlife!!

The raccoon story reminded me of when my kids were young they loved to watch Bullwinkle & Rocky Raccoon. Pleasant memories. Thanks for the reminder Glenda.

In the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, Rocky was Rocket J Squirrel, a flying squirrel. It was in that show that Snidely Whiplash was a featured character in one of the accompanying recurring stories. R & B was my favorite cartoon show too.

Rocky Raccoon is the title of a Beatles song.

it was Bullwinkle j moose and rocket j squirrel! one of my favorite "cartoon" show absolutely NOT meant for kids. have no idea what the "j" stands for?

Count me in as someone that is afraid of raccoons. We were tent camping 10 years ago and the campgrounds were overrun with them. As soon as we arrived, we fed our dogs after an 8-hour car ride. The husky promptly flipped his bowl of kibble and tried to bury it. Fast forward to bedtime, as we are settling in, we hear a snorting, grunting sound outside the tent. Opened up the flap with a flashlight in hand and were face to face with 4 big raccoons digging up and eating the buried kibble. They were not afraid of us in the least and didn't even back up. I'm glad that the dogs were crated or I fear that there would have been a fight.

I was going to share a photo but it appears that photobucket is holding my photos ransom.

ETA...it let me save the photo this morning :-) That straw mat was our doormat to the tent. They were illuminated with a big flashlight. They look like they were enjoying our beer also. The other two were somewhere out of frame.

Okay already ... I stand corrected. This actually was the show they watched The Racoons. Now what do you have to say about the roadrunner? They also loved to watch that one!

A friend woke up in the middle of the night and found three huge raccoons in her kitchen eating her cat's kibble. Scared her to death! They ran back out through the pet door.

Rocky and Bullwinkle was meant for kids. It was one of just a few kids shows that had a storyline for kids but continually threw in meanings and puns to entertain the adults they expected were sometimes watching with kids.

The characters and show were conceived and produced by a crazy man named Jay Ward and his company in Hollywood. I suspect the J. in the two names is for him.

We would sit on the back patio for drinks after yard work and one night, a raccoon crept up and first thing we knew, he was untying husband's shoe laces!

PKponder - PhotoBucket has changed their terms of use and now require a lot of $$$ to share your photos from there to a third-party site. My hubby (photographers) and all his photographer friends are ditching PhotoBucket in protest.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/technology/amazon-ebay-images-held-to-ransom-by-photobucket/news-story/f5b3efdaa1dfd7cb5c9a62e6ec2520c6 

I just went to my Photobucket, and 'save image as' to my desktop, and pasted it from there. I've never done it any other way.

We have quite a few raccoons in the neighborhood. They are a common sight. Some years back one of my rotties chased one over the fence in the middle of the night. At least I assume the coon went over the fence. The dog went straight through the fence after the coon and the coon landed in the neighbor's pool. My other dog, a black lab with a touch of coonhound (with the coonhound yowl) in him, followed and jumped in the pool with the coon. Quite a commotion. It was around 3:00 AM when this all went down. I woke DH and we were trying to round up our dogs in the neighbors yard. The raccoon was hissing, the lab kept jumping in and out of the pool trying to catch him and the rottie was running around the edge barking her head off. Neighbor sticks his head out the second story window. My DH tells him a coon is in his pool. He says Oh , shuts the window and goes back to bed like it is perfectly alright with him that the animals are having a pool party in the middle of the night. We finally got hold of the rottie and corralled the lab. The coon ran off. DH was out there nailing up boards to temporarily secure the fence. Not one peep out of any of the neighbors. I was sure someone would have called 911.

At our old house we would feed the cat on the deck outside the kitchen door. Various other animals would also show up regularly and help themselves.

There was a trio of cute, small, young raccoons who would show up together. All you had to do is walk near the kitchen door and they would hightail it out of there. There was also an older, much larger raccoon that would show up alone, who didn't scare easily. If you opened the door while he was right there, he would barely glance up while continuing to grab the food and shove it into his mouth. Even if you shouted at him, he would merely pause for a second as if to say "Hey, I'm eatin' here" and resume.

When my daughter was at Cornell in the early 90's, Ithaca was over-run with raccoons, many of them rabid and all of them utterly fearless. I came back to her sorority house one night and parked in the back parking lot. It looked like a ghetto neighborhood with raccoons sitting on the hoods and roofs of all the cars, just waiting for me to get out of my car and make a run for the back door. They were just plain threatening looking. Finally, a young man came along and got out a big stick he carried for just this purpose and caused them to scatter and I got to the door unharmed.

DD said she made that run everyday, often at night. Raccoons, skunks and bats are the main carriers of rabies in this country and the danger must be respected.

"Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat" "Again???" "I gotta get a new hat".

Snidely Whiplash was Dudley Dooright's nemesis right? ha

There are no raccoons in Newfoundland! Being an island, we don't have a lot of animals that the rest of Canada has. For example, we have no porcupines, deer, snakes, poisonous spiders, etc. Every couple of years a raccoon will make it onto the island by stowing away in a transport truck. Wildlife is quick to trap them, since we don't need any more non-native species here. Moose were introduced in 1904 and they've made a mess of the island.

The first time I saw a raccoon was in a zoo. The first time I saw one (actually two) in the wild was in the woods just outside of Ottawa. In an area called Stoney Creek there are all sorts of walking trails and there is a tiny building that is a wild bird rescue centre. The raccoons were outside that building eating bird seed, corn, or something. They were too quick when they saw me and I didn't get their picture.

I've often wondered about those pet doors. Can't ANYTHING get into your house that way? Rats? Ewww!

Interesting facts caseynfld. I never knew that.

A coon got into our house once as we were walking the dogs. It got cornered quickly by my labradoodle and cockapoo when we got back. We held the dogs back and corralled it out of the home through the cat door. No animals come near my place usually as Noble walks tall and carries a big bark, and lunges like greased lightning. ;)

I have one that I feed every night. She came up during the flood and was so pitiful. She has her own food and water bowls. I call her a she, I honestly don't know!

Jasdip - uploading from your desktop and third-party hosting are two different things. :)

Weird, after posting my pic here from Photobucket, I just received an email from them saying that they notice I've been posting to a 3rd party user, and they recommend that I upgrade.

Casey, I didn't know you had few wild animals. I don't see moose, but that doesn't mean they're not here.

Regarding a pet door, a man in Idaho had this visitor!

Now wouldn't that scare you! Oh my gosh.

Yes, school house.

I'm not necessarily nostalgic about things past but R&B is a show I think is timeless and maybe funnier than some of today's programs. There are snippets available on the internet, and some on You Tube. I suspect DVDs can be found too with complete episodes.

I was sitting out on the back steps once enjoying the night air when a raccoon came around the corner. I think it was as surprised as I was - it hissed at me and puffed up like a cat before running up the nearest tree.

Thanks for starting this thread, Glenda. I am enjoying everyone's stories.

It's their world too. We tried so hard to see a moose in Tetons Park and they are worried about the declining numbers there. Raccoons are so smart and will find anything you leave outside. Maybe send your extra moose to Wyoming Casey.

Glenda, you are braver than me..........Back in the 60's I had a neighbor who had a "pet" raccoon. They kept it in a cage in the back yard and it often got out. He was known to bite to I wasn't too happy when I was in my garage and the raccoon came in. In my haste to jump into the car, I sprained my thumb. I was not a happy camper to say the least.

LOL Kitty, I am sure there are lots of people who would love to send our moose your way.

Jasdip, yeah, I guess when people think that Canada has raccoons, they just think they are everywhere. But like I said, being an island means we don't have many of the "normal" animals that the rest of the country has.

Oh, just thought of another, we don't have skunks either! And coyotes are new, we've only had them for a couple of years. Authorities believe they must have come across on the ice from Labrador in the winter.

Oh, I miss our raccoons! They've *vanished*.

We live along a creek that runs a dozen feet below ground level -- shallow except in late winter/early spring when it threatens to overflow the banks. It's the perfect setting for raccoons since they like to rinse their food.

We had raccoons in the cottonwood trees across the creek from us for two summers. We could see them from our screened porch during very hot days. They'd lie on their backs, high in the forks of the cottonwoods, exposing their bellies to cool off and swaying with the treetops in any passing breeze.

We store our garbage and recycling in our garage and only take it out the morning of our pickup day. No raccoons for a while, but we have many other 'crittesr'. DH spotted a skunk along our back lot line last week as he was closing up the house before going to bed. Many nights a possum uses the sides of our house to guide her in her nearsighted quest for food, babies clinging to her underside.

I haven't heard coyotes recently, but our overpopulation of rabbits has shrunk. We had a pair of big, golden-breasted hawks last week. Ma and Pa Cardinal visit our little fountain often, and our over-wintering robins are busy defending against migrating 'strangers'. It's very 'birdy' in our yard early and late.

Condo has posted coyote warnings, advising to keep all pets on a leash (required anyway), recently.

Friend lost her cat to a coyote OR possibly a hawk

not too long ago..