There are no clean getaways

I was out of town for all afternoon and didn't get home until about 9:30pm yesterday. Since the feral cats didn't take the bait (I'll get you yet, Lil Rica!) this means I missed the "close the trap and before dusk" window. I didn't think much about it because I caught the raccoon yesterday. I know there's a possum that's been sniffing around, but what are the chances of that wandering in less than 24 hours later, right?

Around 1am I heard the cage thrashing, which is a bad sign because I don't usually hear trapped cats from inside the house. Not able to leave an animal in peril, I get up to check out what's going on. It was just beginning to rain so I just poked my head out the back door and could only hear something in the dark hissing and clawing. Yeah, probably not a cat. Especially since there were 3 sets of cat eyes coming over the fence to do their own investigation (I guess you could say they were going to perform a CAT scan... thank you, thank you, you guys have been great. Next show at 11!) Anyway, I ducked back in to grab a flashlight. When I got back out, one of the cats was about 18 inches from the cage. Sigh... That's what this neighborhood needs is for one of these cats to get rabies, so I shoo them away and take a closer look myself.

Yeah... not a possum either.

Don't let those big brown eyes fool you. This bad boy was mean and Cra-Hanky. I knew this guy was going to be 'special needs' because he had already soiled the length of the cage and then continued to panic in it. No wonder the cats were interested. And since I've been a raccoon specialist for oh, the last 24 hours, I knew with certainty that there was absolutely no point in feeding this bugger a towel. But out of pity, I moved the cage over a couple feet, getting him out of the rain (and his other stuff) and went back to bed.

Chris checked him out the next morning and noted (as you can kind of see in the picture) that he really didn't have raccoon stripes. I told her that in my raccoon-expert opinion, the coloration difference was most likely due to genetic variances and the fact that it had spent the night digging a 2 inch deep trench through the mud under the cage. Somehow, it had also managed to pull some rocks into the cage. I'm still baffled by that one. Was he planning to pound his way out? Did the cage need decorating? Only the raccoon knows for sure...

Anyway suffice it to say that this is NOT how I planned on spending my spring break. Oh, and kids, don't worry, he's "in a better place" now too.

PS)This blog title is the tag line from the movie "No Country for Old Men" which fits nicely with this topic and my previous blog. I was going to photoshop the movie poster and put raccoons in it, but I'm running out of steam here...