My puppy almost caught a raccoon last night. He's 6 months old and mixed breed (Blue Heeler/German Shepard/Lab/Weimaraner). He's been treeing raccoons for a couple of weeks (he sees them on the porch and tries to catch them, but they make a tree before he can get to them).
Last night, he took off after something that, near as I can tell, wasn't there. He ran to the corner formed by the north end of our garage and the fence. About the time I realized there was nothing there, I started sweeping my light toward the garage and lo and behold out comes this gray, striped critter. I thought it was one of our cats, but then I realized it was bigger than the cat. I then thought it might be a similar looking stray we've had around (slightly bigger, gray striped, but with white feet), then I noticed it wasn't moving like a cat.
The coon turned the corner at the same time my pup turned around. Off goes the pup, at which point the coon starts heading for the nearest tree at full throttle. The pup was a half stride short of catching the raccoon and just almost got its tail anyway. Fortunately, he missed. My biggest fear at that moment was that the pup would get the raccoon, at which point, it may well have been the other way around. He's had his shots, but I don't have much confidence in his ability to whip a coon (he's kind of a sissy, though he's not gun shy, at least).
I peeled the coon out of the tree with a .22, at which point it started doing its "I've-just-been-shot-in-the-head-and-I-can't-stop-dancing" dance. The pup wasn't sure what to make of this and kept running up and poking the coon with his nose. The twitching finally stopped and I went to put the gun back in the house. Suddenly, the pup started barking his fool head off and growling at the coon. I walked back over and the coon was doing this sort of coughing growl thing (new one to me). Another Winchester solid from the Remington into the ear canal and she started doing his little dance again. When the coon stopped twitching this time, the pup lost interest and walked off.
