Spike and the Raccoon, by Len McDougall by Len McDougall
Friday, December 21, 2007
Rated "G" by the Author.
The giant raccoon had killed twenty-four chickens in twenty-four nights. It had to be stopped...
Spike and the Raccoon, by Len McDougall
Len McDougall
First Serial Rights
1250 Words
March 30, 2007
Spike and the Raccoon
My brother-in-law Big John sounded completely exasperated on the phone. Like many rural citizens of northern Michigan, he supplemented the paycheck from a regular job by growing a truck garden and raising livestock to help reduce grocery bills. Now something was taking his chickens, and he'd been unable to catch, or even identify, the culprit. He'd lost twenty-four chickens in as many nights, and last night one of the two fighting cocks he'd bought to protect the hens had gone missing. The other was hiding in the henhouse.
I arrived at Big John's house the following Friday afternoon. Heavy foot-shaped imprints around the coop revealed that the culprit was an unusually large raccoon, with an estimated weight of about fifty pounds, or half again as large as a typical adult. I'd taken two that size in my fur trading days, and a raccoon that large was a predator worthy of concern. John and I both knew from experience that this individual would never stop its chicken stealing ways, and that chasing it away from his place would only mean sending it to the henhouses of his neighbors.
My tools for this job included a scoped .22 rifle, a flashlight, and Spike, my eighty-five- pound, five-year-old American Pit Bull Terrier. Spike obeyed verbal commands and hand signals, as every "working" dog should, and he certainly didn't fit the killer image portrayed by thrill-peddling reporters who can't tell a pitbull from a pomeranian. What Spike did possess was an unshakable devotion to me, and a well-earned hatred of raccoons in particular.
I'd opted to dispatch this raccoon with the .22 long rifle rimfire cartridge, because it would likely be late when I cornered the predator, and I didn't want to awaken the countryside with the roar of a big-bore centerfire. But instead of bringing my own customized Armscor 20P with Remington's Viper ammo, I'd decided to use my wife's neglected Marlin 995 semi-auto, which was loaded with Remington's Thunderbolt plinking cartridges.
Nightfall came black and moonless. After everyone else had gone to bed, Spike and I waited quietly in the darkened house for the marauder to arrive. The 'coon made its appearance shortly after midnight, heralded first by a low growl from my dog, then by frantic clucking from the henhouse. I opened the door and Spike exited at a run, racing toward the chicken coop. I grabbed the rifle and jacked a round into the chamber as I followed him from behind the flickering, misshapen beam of a cheap plastic flashlight I'd borrowed from Big John.
Spike was barking at the base of a large poplar tree near the woodline, about twenty yards from the chicken coop. His eyes shone like jewels in the beam of my flashlight, and it was obvious from his excitement that he'd treed the raccoon. I played my pitiful light over leafy poplar branches, knowing the shadows they cast would severely limit my ability to see the animal behind them. I could hear claws scratching against bark as the 'coon clambered higher, but there was no way out of that particular tree except downward.
My light reflected from a pair of eyeballs behind leafy shadows. Their owner was cloaked in inky darkness, but I guessed its position at roughly twenty feet above ground. With rifle forend and flashlight held side-by-side in my forward palm, I pointed the Marlin upward and reacquired the 'coon's eyes through its Simmons 4x32 riflescope. The crosshairs shone orange in the dim beam as I centered them between those glowing eyes. The eyes disappeared as the raccoon, sensing its peril, scrambled for more secure footing, but a few seconds later it was once again looking into my sights.
I snapped the Marlin's crossbolt safety to Fire and gently pulled the trigger rearward, hoping at that point to just knock the animal from its perch. The rifle's muzzle spat a small tongue of flame and the 'coon's eyes disappeared. I heard it scratching for a grip as it tumbled downward through the branches to hit the ground with a disturbingly heavy thud, little more than ten feet from me. Light and rifle swung around automatically to illuminate the grounded raccoon. It was a big one all right, and it was not happy. The times when I'd faced similar situations had been memorable enough for me to anticipate the all-out attack that followed. Still feeling relatively calm, and maybe just a little too sure of myself, I leveled the Marlin against my hip and squeezed its trigger just as the maddened animal charged.
Nothing happened. I looked down at the rifle and saw in the backglow of my flashlight that the cartridge casing I'd just fired had "stovepiped," and was crushed crosswise between bolt and breech. That was bad, because it meant the gun was out of action for more time than I had to cope with the problem. Now I was scared. I had no idea where my dog was, but I yelled, "Spike, get 'im," as the enraged 'coon closed the gap between us at surprising speed. I rammed my useless rifle's muzzle hard into its ribs, but the raccoon sort of rolled around the blow and kept coming. Clawed handlike paws grasped at my blue jeans, but before they could find purchase enough to allow a hard bite, Spike's white chest flashed from the darkness to my left. His powerful jaws closed over the big raccoon's spine, and I felt its claws being plucked from the denim over my ankle.
Despite being three-quarters his own weight, Spike raised the giant raccoon off the ground and shook it as though it were a toy. Droplets of wet blood spattered against my cheek, and I could hear vertebrae and rib bones crushing under jaw pressure that authorities claim can exceed one ton per square inch. Spike shook the carcass until he was certain it contained no more fight, then relinquished it to me on command. I grasped the animal by a hind foot and raised it off the ground with my strongest arm, which could barely lift the fifty-three pound carcass.
Spike was smiling widely, his long tongue hanging to one side. He knew at some level that he'd just done something very good for his owner, and nothing makes a pitbull terrier happier than pleasing its master. I dropped to one knee and threw both arms around my dog's massive neck, hugging his big, flat head tight to my cheek. Despite being wet with blood he had drawn violently only seconds before, Spike wriggled and whimpered with joy, still very much the gentle pet I continued to trust until his untimely death a year later.
I try to take a lesson from every bad experience, and there were a few to be learned from that close one. I should have taken my own rifle, and I should have used my own Mag-Lite flashlight, both of which could be trusted. I also should have used a faster, more destructive hunting cartridge, like Remington's Yellowjacket or CCI's Stinger, instead of "plinking" rounds designed to kill soup cans. And I should have expected that the animal would be exceptionally aggressive and tough from theboldness it displayed in stealing chickens.
Most importantly, the experience reaffirmed the value of having a good, loyal dog with me in the woods. In recent years, politics have forced me to adopt breeds that incite less hysteria, but Spike was one of the very best.
Len McDougall is a "lifer" in the outdoor world, a professional writer since 1982, a contract survival instructor and wilderness guide since 1991 (currently with Timberwolf Wilderness Adventures, Paradise, MI), and a woodsman since running his first commercial trapline in 1968. Author of 10 books about the great out-of-doors, McDougall lives the lumberjacking, dogsledding, wolf-handling life that he writes about. New for March, 2008, The Lyons Press and Len McDougall are proud to introduce the expanded and updated 2nd Edition of McDougall's classic, "Practical Outdoor Survival," the survival guide that emphasizes staying alive by any means available.
SURGICALLY RE-WRITTEN and CONDENSED Feb-May 2013... A MONUMENTAL JOURNEY is an adventure mystery historical fiction novel that follows a young mans journey (with friends) to find Truth, happiness, purpose, and a long lost Norse tribe.
Spike and the Raccoon, by Len McDougall
