Another Ray “Trophy”?

Carol let Ray out this morning (Jan 13) so that he could complete his pee ’n’ poop routine. I generally take care of the “front end” as I am up and moving before Carol. That gives her the honor of taking care of the “rear end”!

I was going through some of your Posts when I heard an urgent call from the kitchen. Something about blood all over the floor! Needless to say I dashed through expecting to see either Carol and/or Ray dripping blood … but no. What I did see were just drops of blood all over the floor. It soon became clear that they were not coming from Carol.

She then explained that Ray had been in a fight with a squirrel (and killed it). In the absence of any obvious cuts, I started to check his feet thinking he may have cut them somehow in the fight. I had just picked up his front paw when another drop of blood fell from his nose. Now the question arose, did he just get a nose bleed, or was he bitten or scratched just inside his nose?

Two questions immediately crossed my mind:

How does one get a 75lbs Ray to lay down; elevated its head, and lay still while a cold wet cloth is draped over his nose, and his nostrils plugged with Kleenex to soak up blood? It has  always worked for my occasional nose bleed. Answer: With Ray… you don’t.

Should we be concerned that he had possibly been bitten by the squirrel?

The solution on both accounts was to call the vet and, while talking to them, his nose bleeding stopped! They advised that the prospect of problems from a bite was minimal based on his history of shots, but we should just monitor him for anything unusual.

The next job was to clean up the “debris” in the garden! Carol was cleaning up the floor so I went outside and quickly found the unfortunate squirrel who had apparently displayed seriously (and fatally) poor judgement. Considering what it had presumably been through, it was in remarkably good shape. If I didn’t know better, it could have been laying on its side and sound asleep!

One dead squirrel was added to next week’s garbage pickup, which left me wondering how I could stop Ray from concentrating on that area of garden. There could be all sorts of squirrel traces in the snow and on the grass (we had a little snow overnight), and Ray still needed to go out and poop.

The solution which came to mind (one of those knee-jerk impulsive reactions), was to boil up some water; pour it over the area in question which would hopefully breakdown any liquids and allow them to be absorbed to some degree by the ground. The second stage was to shovel the lawn such that I ended up with a pile of snow over the spot in question. I was lucky in that while shoveling the lawn, I came across a Ray pee spot so it was hoped that the end result (boiling water, lots of snow, and Ray’s scent) would not generate too much interest for Ray!

It worked quite well. Of course he went straight to that area and sniffed around, but made no attempt to dig into the snow pile. He eventually wandered away and pooped!

Now all I have to do is prepare for the inevitable comments from the neighbors about me shoveling snow off the back lawn! Snow shoveling around here is usually limited to driveways and sidewalks!

21 thoughts on “Another Ray “Trophy”?”

  5. Hi Colin! Yes…that IS quite an achievement. And that must have been one bold (or brainless) squirrel to have let Ray approach him. Maybe it thought Ray wanted to cuddle with him…? He does seem kind of like a nice cuddly 75lb teddy bear from a distance… 😉

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    • Hi Phoebe. I suspect that squirrels are way down in the “smarts” comparison tables! Our squirrels always seem to wait until the last minute before leaping to the wood fence, or to a tree ….. but they only have to make one mistake!

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  6. Hopefully Ray should be OK. Maggie rolled a squirrel (as she has done a pigeon and flipped a young rabbit) and got a nasty nip, but both lived to tell the tale. Hopefully any ‘smelly evidence’ will soon be obscured. Poor Ray.

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  8. Hope Ray is a-okay — sounds like he was the victor, and I’m sure, as dogs go, he’s mighty proud of himself (and should be). 🙂 Wishing you all a great day! (Now that you’ve gotten all that clean up out of the way.)

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    • Hi Deb. With the exception of his “poop cycle” being totally out of routine, he seems fine. I have no doubt that he was very pleased with his performance (protecting his territory from those nut burying furry guys), but I really wish that he would learn to share his space!

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      • Ah, dogs! Charlie is just so certain that he owns the sidewalk in front of our house and barks and barks at anyone violating that line, 😉 We have squirrels in our neighborhood too, and when Chuck sees one — well, the chase is on! Give Ray a pat on the head and a treat and he’ll be extra proud of himself. 🙂

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