Nuisance aminals

[SadieKate]

While we were on vacation the apricot tree which is having a bumper crop started dumping fruit all over the lawn. The durn Wonder Poodle who loves apricots had a feast. The biggest problem? He figured out how to spit out the pits so now we have to go around in the grass on our hands and knees finding the pits before we can mow the lawn.

Bubba picked up about 75 pits last night after witnessing one of the pit spitting episodes.

[coyote]

We had a similar experience....taught the dog to pick ripe tomatoes. Now we have to put the plants behind wire. The dog walks by everyday and sniffs. Anything outside the wire is fair game :)

[snapdragen]

A friend of mine's dog would eat tomatoes too. Caranne would be waiting for the tomatoes to get ripe, and when she was ready to go pick them, Lady had already eaten them.

I had a dog that would dig up carrots and eat them. She thought it was wonderful that we grew dog treats!

[Eden]

If I ever catch the racoon that keeps ripping up my Irises........

[DarcyInOregon]

Wish you would take a photo of your dog eating apricots. I would love to see that. That would be good enough to replace my bike photo I use for a screen saver.

The raccoons are cute, cute, cute. I live rurally, and the raccoons come and go, munching on kitty kibble on the front porch. They don't show up every night, but a few times a week. Last night I turned on the porch lights and there was a mommy raccoon teaching her two babies how to eat kitty kibble. The babies were about the size of an 8-10 week kitten, just little fluffs of fur.

Eden, I don't think raccoons dig up Irises. I have lots of Irises and lots of raccoons, and I've never had an Iris dug up. The culprit is probably a ground squirrel.

Darcy

[Eden]

Nope its a nasty racoon. My irises grow in the water. It's not the irises that the racoon is really interested in. They are beautiful Japanese irises and he waits until about 2 days before its ready to bloom and then wreaks havoc. He thinks that there might be frogs or fishies in there so he rolls over all the rocks and rips up my irises.
Nope sorry, not cute at all in this neighborhood. The mess up gardens, get into trash, have loud fights and kill kitties (yet another reason mine are indoors only!) Coyote pee worked for a few days, as did a radio at night, but both were figured out pretty quickly.

[kjay]

Anything a poodle does is fine by me. I'd love to see a pic of yours, SK. Wonduring if the apricots had a laxative effect? That would be the pits. :D

[mimitabby]

Eden, I've lived in this house for 20 years and we've never left food outside and no raccoons. Fortunately we've no neighbors that think they are cute to feed either. On the cat network I have heard of fat sassy raccoons that suddenly decide that cats are fair game. and the cats that survive raccoon attacks are in a pretty bad way..Raccoons outweigh most cats by about double when they are healthy and fullgrown. THank goodness I don't have to deal with that!

the only varmints we have are starlings who screech and carry on while they destroy my fig crop. I shoot them with my trusty water hose and foil them by putting socks on large figs.

[DarcyInOregon]

How do raccoons kill cats? I've lived here for 30 years, on 50 acres, growing trees, so I have lots of wildlife because my land is forested. When I look outside, the raccoons and my cats are on the porch, totally indifferent to each other, within a few feet of each other. Now I've had stray un-neutered tom cats come by and attack my cats and try to kill them, but never a raccoon. I had a couger cut open a dog from scrotum to throat. I had a nutria kill a cat, about 28 years ago; the vet identified the killer as a nutria from the spit left on my cat. I had an eagle kill a cat by swooping down and breaking its neck. I've had coyotes kill and carry off some cats and so I now have an Anatolian to keep the predators away. I would say the most benign critter on my property is the raccoon.

I should add I haven't lost a cat since I got my Anatolian. And for the kitty lovers, yes my precious kitties are inside, but some of them are dumped cats who are shy and don't want to live inside, and those are the ones who got killed in the past years, the ones who refused to live inside.

Darcy

[BikeMomma]

My mom's dog loves to graze on the hundreds of plums that drop from her plum tree every year. Unfortunately, the result is the pungent aroma the otherwise sweet pooch emits from the derriere region! :eek:

Peeee--uuuuuu!! :D
~BikeMomma

[Zen]

Plum farts and pit spitters!

Ranger loved veggies, when the net from the bag containing onions was left poking out the cupboard door he had an onion fest. When I had a garden he would eat green beans off the vine. He had a buddy at the time, a black lab, who had a penchant for cantaloupes. He would pick one, carry it out on the lawn and have a relaxing knosh.

Some people are amazed that the dogs like vegetables, they must have never had a dog.

[Eden]

Sorry Darcy, you're just not going to convert me to a racoon lover. I live in the city - and I've been seeing racoons out during the day around here recently - with people around and everything so I'm thinking they are getting much more bold. Maybe out in the country where there are lots of other opportunities to eat they are not a dangerous nuisance, but around here they've started to decide that pets are fair game..... (oh and don't talk to the people who try to keep koi ponds...)
I live a 15 min walk from downtown Seattle, so we don't have the big predators... (though I have heard rumors that someone saw a coyote a few blocks from my house) so I can be pretty sure cougars aren't killing all the cats - still an unbelievable number went missing this spring.

[SadieKate]

Darby, in an urban environment raccoons are very adaptive. Just like coyotes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14486644/

Two slaps with a wet noodle for kjay.:D

[Lise]

Mr. Spock, J's dog, loves cauliflower. And that's about it. Other vegetables he will politely accept, perhaps even make a show of chewing once or twice, but then walk away and drop them somewhere inconspicuous so as not to hurt our feelings by rejecting our kind offer. :rolleyes: Last night I found a chunk of chewed carrot on the front hall rug.

I love the image of a black lab noshing on a cantaloupe! :D

[SadieKate]

Izaak the Wonder Poodle will eat carrots and apples until he's sick. Anything sweet and crunchy, but the pit trick is new.

Darby, leaving out anything attractive to raccoons can invite trouble. For one thing they carry Leptospirosis that can be picked up from their urine and transmitted to your pet and/or you. My parents nearly lost one of their poodles to it several months ago and they're still fitting health issues with the same dog. No raccoons in the yard until they put in a fish pond with gold fish.

Add that to rabies and raccoon roundworm.

http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/ope/enotes/showarticle.cfm?id=187
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1556&articleid=454
http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/a_closer_look_at_wildlife/raccoons.html

[maillotpois]

Izaak must be seriously.... um... "regular" right about now! :eek: That's a lot of apricots

We get raccoons all the time - we're not exacyly urban, though. They once got trapped in the trash can we USED to keep the dog food in outside. The lid was bungeed on and the little stinker got trapped in there. We had to release him with my rottie VERY upset about him getting in her food in the first place!

Now we have a labradoofus. He's not upset about anything. He is starting to be gassy, though.

Hmm. THis is almost like a pet TD.

[Tuckervill]

That is the most hilarious thing I've ever heard! Spitting out the pits! lol.

Karen

[lauraelmore1033]

We used to have a dog that loved to steal potatoes and carry them off to his bed. He didn't really eat them, he just liked to nibble on them like a chew bone. I could always tell when he'd stolen a potato because of the happy way he'd skip off to his bed and dive into the pillows.

[7rider]

Don't walk into Noah and Tasha's room with a banana if you value your shins.
ATTACK!!!!
Same with cilantro.
But wait....they're bunnies. :p
And they LOOOOVE peach pits and apricot pits (with lots of juicy bits still attached, thank you very much) and mango pits. They'll nibble every last bit off and leave the pit nice and clean.

[DarcyInOregon]

Eden, you must be correct. It is the habitat and food source, so urban raccoons are different than rural raccoons.

As I said, I have raccoons, but they don't eat kitty kibble every night. It is not a constant food source for them. I am not going to change how I feed the cats on the outside just because a raccoon wanders by now and then. Indeed, my porch is a wrap around, gated at each end, and trellised with vines. A raccoon has to go to a lot of effort to get up on the porch. I can tell when a raccoon visited during the night because the pet water bowl will be dirty, and consequently I know that there are weeks and weeks where raccoons don't visit at all. I manage my land and forests to be a wildlife habitat, so I believe the raccoons prefer the natural food found in the woods to the human produced food of the kitty kibble.

In that respect I don't have any fears of raccoons contaminating my pets with diseases. The area in which I live teems with wildlife, and I give all wildlife my respect and the right to live on my land without fear of being hunted or trapped. I merely do not want the predators to be close to my house at night.

Would love to see a photo of the plum eating dog too.

Darcy

[East Hill]

That is the most hilarious thing I've ever heard! Spitting out the pits! lol.

Karen

It's a good thing he does spit them out! Apricot pits are full of cyanide. I remember as a kid chewing on a few apricot pits and spitting them out in disgust. I later learned it was not a good thing to eat them.

For some odd reason, my mother would make narsty apricot jam (leaving the narsty fuzzy skins in--gag) and would throw in an apricot kernel. I still don't know why...

East Hill

[Kano]

Had grapevines on the kennel, in an attempt to have it look relatively attractive from the street, since it was visible. Never got to eat any grapes.

Had a strawberry patch since then that was full of what was SUPPOSED to be ever-bearing plants. Never got a berry. One morning, I saw one that was almost ripe, and figured I'd come back later in the day.

Then the dog came by, saw the half ripe berry and daintily nibbled just the ripe part! No WONDER this was the only part of the flower beds he didn't trample! Here I thought it had been birds!

Not exactly a nuisance ANIMAL -- but your pits reminded me of another nuisance: BLACK WALNUT trees. Beautiful tree, but those baseballs it pitches out onto the ground.... We had one growing on the line between ours and the neighbor's yard once upon a time -- probably REALLY on their side, and that bugger dropped baseball sized nuts much of the summer. We'd pick them up before mowing and get all stained from the soft stuff around the shells. Invariably we missed a few and twisted our ankles while mowing, and the tree didn't like being picked up after: It pitched those baseball size nuts at our heads while we were mowing!

Karen in Boise

[Eden]

I planted strawberries in my window box once... they didn't do all that well, but I did finally get one luscious looking strawberry. It was almost perfectly ripe, when I looked out of the window and saw....................................... one very smug looking squirrel who had just finished popping into his fat little face. Boooohooooo

[bacarver]

We've had a small orchard for years and we've had assorted dogs through the years. None of our dogs had ever shown an interest in fruit till my monster-appetite golden joined our family 2 years ago. Whitney will stand on her hind legs in a full, perfectly balanced stretch in an attempt to bite apples off the branches. Since she lives to eat, we don't get far with trying to stop her. Good thing she doesn't know where we keep the ladder!

[Tuckervill]

There's a tree on our fence line, too. It's huge, and probably does belong to the neighbors, but it hangs all it's heavy limbs over our shop building. Two autumns ago I picked up all the green baseballs and threw them in the portable cement mixer with some water and rocks, and beat all the husks off the nuts. I did this for two days, there were so many. Then I commenced to trying to crack the nuts open. No luck. Finally I went and bought a bench vice. Tried to use it without attaching the vice to the table. Still no cracked nut. I became so frustrated with the whole process, I just left the nuts in the bucket and never got a single one open!

The next spring the tree died. :( This spring hubby got a lift and cut all the limbs he could reach. He dropped one on the roof of the shop--didn't damage the brand new metal roof, but when he tried to get it off, it slammed into the side of the buildling and put a hole in the wall. Now we have birds nesting in the shop.

That black walnut tree has put me through the ringer!

Karen

[IFjane]

There's a tree on our fence line, too. It's huge, and probably does belong to the neighbors, but it hangs all it's heavy limbs over our shop building. Two autumns ago I picked up all the green baseballs and threw them in the portable cement mixer with some water and rocks, and beat all the husks off the nuts. I did this for two days, there were so many. Then I commenced to trying to crack the nuts open. No luck. Finally I went and bought a bench vice. Tried to use it without attaching the vice to the table. Still no cracked nut. I became so frustrated with the whole process, I just left the nuts in the bucket and never got a single one open!

The next spring the tree died. :( This spring hubby got a lift and cut all the limbs he could reach. He dropped one on the roof of the shop--didn't damage the brand new metal roof, but when he tried to get it off, it slammed into the side of the buildling and put a hole in the wall. Now we have birds nesting in the shop.

That black walnut tree has put me through the ringer!

Karen

Good idea, Karen, but you have to wait until the husks turn black before you remove them. The nuts aren't ready until then. Still almost impossible to crack, but it can be done, and mmmmmmmmmmmm.......that meat is good! In a former life, my ex and I had a line of walnut trees along our back fence. Ditto on the twisted ankles and baseballs hitting us on the head. Still, I loved those trees.

We, too, have a raccoon that likes to raid my lawn. He was coming for the birdseed in the feeders until we started taking them in after dark. Then he started stealing blueberries off the bushes. I don't mind that - there are plenty for everyone. The cardinals love them as well. In spite of sharing with the wildlife, I have a huge bucket of blueberries in the fridge right now.

We have birds that sing at night (no mocking birds, though), including the neighbor's roosters that crow at 2 a.m. The biggest nuisance for us is the neighbor's cats. They do not spay or neuter; they do not get shots or wormed; and they try and park under my bird feeders! I love to feed birds, but I hate to feed the neighbor's cats the birds!

[Tuckervill]

What I read said they didn't have to be black, just softened up, which they were! The husks were still hard to get off, though. I still have all the nuts in a bucket in the smokehouse. Wonder how good they'd be now! lol.

Karen

[lph]

I love the image of a black lab noshing on a cantaloupe! :D

I had a pony once who loved all citrus fruits. Once I came home with four large shopping bags, left them on the back porch while I went round the house to unlock, and when I came out the back door a minute later she'd turned up, torn a hole in one of the bags and was happily chowing down on three entire grapefruits...

[smilingcat]

Never have an avocado in your backyard if you have dogs.

Ofcourse the dog's coat is going to be the best in your area. not to mention, your dog may end up being fat.

We found whole pit, half pit and pits with teeth mark all over in the backyard. Never found any dropped whole fruit. Can you blame them. So yummy.

I need to plant an avocado in my backyard. but no room.

have 4 bears lime tree, 3 washington navel orange, 2 surviving meyer lemon other 3 died.

My orange tree is next to the meyer lemon so the orange is sour. oops. and Meyer lemon is very mild. Makes most delicious lemonade, lemon square...

Smilingcat

[snapdragen]

I kept finding half eaten tomatoes and was blaming the squirrels. 'Til one day I look out, and Chloe is padding across the lawn, looking very smug, with a big red tomato in her mouth. Beasty!

We used to have walnut trees, but the squirrels pretty much got all the nuts. They'd bury them all over the yard. That's how I found out the moldy buried shells were poison for dogs, I almost lost my first corgi - Rikki. She liked crunching on the shells after digging them up. Ended up in the emergency vet's office at 11:30 at night, pumping her stomach. :eek:

[wannaduacentury]

If I ever catch the racoon that keeps ripping up my Irises........


I had a raccoon eat the dogfood out in the shop one time. I had to weigh it down to keep him out of it.:rolleyes:

and we occasionally have a possum come up on the porch to eat kitty food. It was a polite possum, it would move over to let you in the door. Crazy thing.