Some 3 a.m. Excitement

 This morning was an adventure at the Hale Home. At 3 a.m. our dog started scratching at the door to our son’s room (we lock our dogs in the kids’ bedrooms overnight). This dog has been getting up early recently. So I got out of bed, still mostly asleep, to let him out. As he and I walked down the hallway in the dark, he started running and chasing something in our living room. They fought and made their way down the hallway into the bathroom. “Great, the dog has got in a fight with our cat,” I think. Our cat stays in our bedroom during the day, but is allowed to prowl the house at night. I turned on the kitchen light, and made my way to the bathroom where our dog was barking and in attack mode. I turned on the bathroom light to find our cat and get her back into our bedroom. What a surprise when I turned on the light, and found a raccoon in the bathtub, hair raised, scared but ready for a fight.

            How did a raccoon get in our house? I think my wife must not have closed the back door when going to bed. In what forever will be remembered as not-my-best moment (while the dog is barking and I am trying to hush him before the kids awake), I opened my bedroom door and hissed at my wife, “You must have left the back door open, there’s a raccoon in our bathtub.” I am pretty sure that is one of the worst ways you could be awakened at 3 a.m. “Who is this man yelling at me, and why is he raging about a raccoon?” She told me she had locked the door and to stop screaming at her. “Well, how did a raccoon get in our house then?,” I retorted, sure I had the upper hand.

            “Well I didn’t let it in,” she replied.

            Meanwhile the dog is barking, our other dog (still shut up in our daughter’s bedroom) has now started barking, and I have a raccoon in my bathtub.

            I asked (well, probably demanded) that my wife get out of bed to hold the dog so that I can somehow escort the terrified raccoon out the door. She does so, however, by this time, the other dog has barked herself into a frenzy and our daughter is now awake. My wife took the first dog, the raccoon scurried out of the bathtub, down the hallway, and out of the dog door into the enclosed playroom where the back door was properly shut and secured. (Dang, I lost that argument, but at least I didn’t have to escort the raccoon!). My wife then let out the second dog, and the two dogs in hot pursuit headed down the hallway toward the dog door and the playroom while I tried to insert the panel into the dog door to bar entry. I did so, but not before the second dog yelped out in great pain as if she has broken a leg or pulled a hamstring (she had done neither, but was just excited by the chase). I then found the flashlight and made my way carefully into the playroom.

            The raccoon, however, was gone. Apparently, it came through a broken seam in the window screen. The windows were open (and yes, the back door was shut, locked and secure). The raccoon then made its way through the dog door. My wife did not put the panel in the dog door because the night before I told her I no longer put the panel in the door since the nights were getting warmer and we didn’t need to block the cold air (or apparently woodland varmints) from getting into the home.

            The dogs were then let outside where they raised a great hullabaloo in the back yard. I checked the dog dish, and sure enough, the raccoon had eaten all the dog food. I am sure that my dog, hearing something eating his food, scratched at the door to get out and find the food thief. No one and no thing messes with his food.

            So tonight, we have closed that window, we will secure the panel in the dog door, and we hope to get a peaceful night’s rest.

            And my son slept through it all.

Lance