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.

[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.

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.

[Tuckervill]

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

Karen

[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