Raccoons take only what is easy. If you pay attention, you'll notice city raccoons just skim the best morsels from your trash. I knew one that was addicted to sunflower seed. But this one had plucked the heads off of half a dozen chicks. He did this by reaching his dexterous hand into the wire cage and grabbing a chick. The wire is too close together to allow a full chick through, so he just ripped off the biggest pieces possible.
One day, I'll write about how I already know for sure that you can't "trap out" raccoons. There's always more, trust me for now. I spent weeks predator proofing my chicken house by adding layers of wire and metal to key weak points but I knew they'd find a way eventually. I found an electric-timer controlled window blind opener and used it as a chicken coop door opener/closer. I learned that more moving parts leads to more problems and lost full grown hens every single time my door malfunctioned.
Ruby was pregnant. We had borrowed a buck named "BrushFire" to breed to Ruby. He was a weird goat in his own way but I never held that against him because he got the job done. Things got tense around kidding time (no kidding, that's what goat labor is called). After all this was her first pregnancy and my first goat labor duty. About a week before the new arrivals, Ruby got attacked. A goat is big enough to be safe from most raccoons or any suburban critters really, except dogs.
In the middle of the night, two German Shepherds made their way through my fences and into the goat yard. Raccoons are considerate compared to dogs. Normally, nuisance dogs are well fed and kill primarily for the act itself. They kill indiscriminately, I saw where a man lost over 30 goats to one dog. That night, I woke up in time to hear one of the goats screaming so I automatically ran through the hallway, up the stairs, out the back door, and into the action. I stood on my elevated back deck. It was a wooden deck six feet off the ground but I had no time for stairs. In the seconds it took me to pick out dog shapes in the dark, I had already leapt. I don't know if I had made a plan yet but I needed one quick since I was accelerating down towards two big dogs and one hurt goat. Luckily for me, the attacking dogs decided if I was bat shit crazy enough to jump six feet from a rail, in the dark, naked; they'd better go. Ruby recovered easily but my Flying Naked Angel of Canine Torment act wouldn't protect goats forever.
I had two dogs in my life before Ralph. Minnie was a short haired lab mutt that loved training. Years later we got Splenda, she was not like that. Lauren brought Splenda home as a puppy for me on Valentine's Day when Max was a baby. Minnie and I would go on nightly walks over by the high school ditch every night. Splenda did not do leashes. Minnie liked running obstacle courses in my backyard. Splenda shat in my house. Minnie loved swimming and fetching. Splenda peed when near water. Minnie loved to go to the river house and play. Splenda tried hanging herself from the car window with her leash at 45 mph....repeatedly. Getting Ralph was a big decision since I was still recovering from Splenda 4 years prior.
Max went with me down to a community near Hot Springs. The farmers there had Great Pyrenees/Anatolian puppies. I don't have the ability to convey that kind of cuteness. It's something that must be witnessed firsthand. We met Ralph's mom. She was huge. Ralph rode in Max's lap all the way home. I don't know why Lauren and the boys always rub things they like under their noses, but they do. It could be a shirt or a blanket or even a dog. That was about four years ago. Last night, Max let big full grown Ralph in for a while. There was time to warm up, the coyotes weren't out yet.
Ralph stays in long enough to warm his joints and then he's back to work. Many busy nights, he runs for hours on end just to demand that the wild things recognize us and carefully consider us. He imposes our rule on a small radius and within that radius, he is the Protector. Ralph's son Scooter is now bigger and stronger and one day he will be the Protector. We have a system that works! Guardian dogs are, without a doubt, the most vital part of the farm. I have seen Ralph cuddle newborn goats to keep them warm. I've seen little goat kids jump on him and torment him endlessly. It took thousands of years of selection and careful husbandry to lead to a dog like that. He is the perfect balance of power and patience. He ran the new farm with ease.
Then he got shot. The bullet is still in his right thigh. I wasn't able to take out the .22 caliber fragment without doing too much damage. Ralph doesn't care about pain. To him, it's just another obstacle to his work. I sliced out a chunk of dead tissue, poured on iodine, and administered an intramuscular antibiotic. He pulled through. The perimeter remains secure. I never asked Ralph how he got shot. Maybe someone didn't know he was the Protector.
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