Recall

[ruby55]

I was pretty sure that Ruby & Sunny had a good recall, Bella & Magee not so much. I guess we've got to work a little more...
Last night around 10pm Magee was inside doing her roorooroo bark; that means "Hey! The kids are outside & getting into trouble!" So I went downstairs & outside to hear a God awful racket, somewhere in one corner of the dog yard(so I thought). It sounded like the lemurs got loose & the dogs were after them. So I looked in the lemur cage; nope, they're both fast asleep. I went to the top of the dog ramp & started clapping my hands & calling Ruby, Sunny & Bella; no response. There's no lights in the dog yard, & it's about an acre, so I went back upstairs & got a flashlight & headed out.Calling, calling calling,..nothing. Not even a jingle of dog tags. Ruby finally came up to me, but no Sunny or Bella. In the meantime the racket was continuing...Finally Sunny & Bella came up to me, but the racket was still going on. So I put everyone in the house & locked the doggy door & went back out. A neighbor pulled up with his brights on; hollered if the dogs & lemurs were ok, I said everyone's safe, so he turned around & followed the sound. Turns out it was 2 raccoons in a tree, either fighting or mating, who knows/who cares. The point is none of the dogs came when I called. So we're back at it again today.

 

[Duetsche_Doggen]

Scarey, I can't stand raccoons, Duke would attack them and chase them up trees. Glad everyone is ok.

PS Thor doesn't have a solid recall either especially if its a real bad distraction. Something we need to work on.

 

[AKBull]

That sounds a little sketchy! Glad we don't have racoons up here.
Junior's recall isn't 100% The only real place we "work" on it is the dog park, and for the first 5 minutes there, forget about it. The older gets though, the better he's getting about it.

 

[Smart_Family]

Yea I'm all set with raccoons haha. We work on recall here in our complex when no one's home for the most part. Sometimes we do it off leash but on easily distractable days we do it on a long lead. The girls are so so on their recalls. They will come back, it's just a matter of how many laps they are going to run before they do most days.

 

[Oak Hill Farm]

Glad they stayed in the trees and it was not the lemurs. One of the worst injuries my dog got was from a raccoon.

 

[Tiger12490]

I've seen darn good bulldogs lose fights with racoons there no joke

Tapd on my Skyrocket

 

[JennQ]

Gunner has amazing recall !!!! Though sadly he is 150% better off leash than on.. when is on leash he has zero "recall", meaning he does not listen to anything! Off leash he is fabulous! But I can't have him off leash everywhere, so back to the trainer we go

I am very glad your pups made it through the ordeal unharmed! I live in Victoria, BC, Canada and we have TONS of Racoons, and they are not to be messed with!!!!

 

[ruthcatrin]

Can't help here either, the raccoons would have totally won over any attempt at recall with my two, and I don't even have to try it to know that!

(Ruby, you have lemurs??!! Cool!)

 

[ruby55]

(Ruby, you have lemurs??!! Cool!)

Yes we have 2; one brown & one ringtail. There's an album in my profile; just a few pics. The ringtail is very timid & the brown is so nosy that I either have to get shots through the cage, or click & get quickly before he tries to steal the camera.

---------- Post added at 10:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:43 PM ----------

The "coons here have been known to be rabid, so we're very careful about them. They tend to stay out of the dog yard; these 2 were in a tree just behind the dog yard. But they're pretty bold with people & the barn cats. We were talking to a neighbor in the drive one day, & a mama & her babies just marched past us, like they didn't even see us. Pretty scary. They almost tore the hind leg off of one of the barn cats. He doesn't run well now & he has a limp, but he still catches his fair share of game (mice, field rats, birds).

 

[ruby55]

The "coons here have been known to be rabid, so we're very careful about them. They tend to stay out of the dog yard; these 2 were in a tree just behind the dog yard. But they're pretty bold with people & the barn cats. We were talking to a neighbor in the drive one day, & a mama & her babies just marched past us, like they didn't even see us. Pretty scary. They almost tore the hind leg off of one of the barn cats. He doesn't run well now & he has a limp, but he still catches his fair share of game (mice, field rats, birds).

 

[ruthcatrin]

Racoons aren't afraid of much in my experience, wary occasionally, but not scared, and if they think they either have a clear path to safety, or don't see you as a threat, you're pretty much screwed with dealing with them. We haven't actually seen to much of them since we moved here. I've not figured out if this is because they're just better at staying unseen in a closer to normal environment, or if its because there are less of them. WHen we lived in the city though they were all over. I don't know what your local laws are like, but trap and release elsewhere is pretty widely tolerated (and doesn't usually require a professional), and in some areas they can be shot on sight as pests or because of the rabies issues. It doesn't help with the recall problems, but it might be worth looking into :/

The lemurs are so cool! Totally not an animal I've ever wanted to own, but at the same time, if you were closer you might have found me on your doorstep wanting to see them!

 

[GavTheMighty]

I feel for you, I have the same issues everytime I feel my dog has gotten to understand recall he ends up halfway accross a forrest with me running after him..........................Sounds funny but really isnt at the time so it has become an issue back on a lead he will go and back to basic training sigh.

 

[ruby55]

Racoons aren't afraid of much in my experience, wary occasionally, but not scared, and if they think they either have a clear path to safety, or don't see you as a threat, you're pretty much screwed with dealing with them. We haven't actually seen to much of them since we moved here. I've not figured out if this is because they're just better at staying unseen in a closer to normal environment, or if its because there are less of them. WHen we lived in the city though they were all over. I don't know what your local laws are like, but trap and release elsewhere is pretty widely tolerated (and doesn't usually require a professional), and in some areas they can be shot on sight as pests or because of the rabies issues. It doesn't help with the recall problems, but it might be worth looking into :/

The lemurs are so cool! Totally not an animal I've ever wanted to own, but at the same time, if you were closer you might have found me on your doorstep wanting to see them!

We are surrounded by 1900 acres of state preserve so we have all sorts of wildlife. But a few years ago, the state of Florida decided to take out all non native plants from their property. So they went through with this horrible machine that chewed everything up & spit it out as mulch. The wildlife running through the property was more than anyone could want. We started trapping the raccoons & relocating them to the little harbor a mile down the road. We thought we were trapping the same ones over & over so we started hitting them with a very small shot of paint on their butts. Turns out we weren't trapping the same ones; there were just so many....Now we're down to probably a few dozen on 6 acres. As long as the trash is always taken to the critter-proof garbage enclosure by the road, we don't see many of them. They will occasionally try to steal the cats' dry food, but that's about all.
As far as the lemurs are concerned, they kind of got dumped here. And you have to have a wildlife handlers permit to have them. And they definitely attract mice & rats, because of the way they eat & WHAT they eat. Harley, the ringtail, is very shy & no one can touch her. If she were to ever get sick or injured it would take a net to catch her. Spiderman the brown was raised by my housemate, so she can go in & he will sit on her lap, & they will have a grooming session. Her son is the only one who can repair the cage, because he has to go in to do it. And Spiderman likes to take things apart He also likes to help Jim by holding the screwgun, or the lumber or whatever while Jim is trying to make repairs. I can pet Spiderman through the cage, & if I have something really yummy like jellybeans, I can touch Harley while she's taking it from me. But I still don't trust Spiderman to not attack me for invading his space if I should try to enter the cage. They're fun to watch though. They both start to chatter when either I or my housemate comes near the cage. Harley cries like a cat when breakfast is late; Spidey barks like a dog when the dogs start to bark. The both freak out if a large bird, like a vulture or pelican, flies low over them. They're not crazy about the feral cats we take care of, who take care of the mice/rats.