Gabby
By Franklin M. Rinker
BRASELTON, Ga. | It happened back in 2016. Gabby is a Tabby house cat that enjoys having a cat door in our basement hideaway that joins my shop. The location provides a number of places for her to retreat, eat and sleep, and the freedom to come and go as she pleases.
Rinker
One morning I noticed that her food dish was upside down and her water dish was not in its normal place, with water splashed about. I figured perhaps an opossum had entered the cat door and upset things. My solution was to set a humane trap and catch the opossum, which I did.
The next day the trap was upside down and cat food and water were scattered about. So, maybe a raccoon? So I set a larger trap. The next morning, the trap was there, but no raccoon. I set it again, moving the trap to a better angle.
That night we had friends over and as things broke up, I went downstairs to check out matters. When I turned on the light… what did I see? A large raccoon, who headed for the cat door as soon as he saw me! And outside he went!
I then wondered if he had broken open a large bag of cat food that I had on a shelf on the other side of the room. Not only a ripped open cat food bag was there, but another raccoon was sitting quietly by the bag and just looking at me! He had no desire to vacate the premises! That really bothered me as that is not normal at all! Since friendly raccoons can be rabid, I got a pole and prodded the raccoon. All it did was look me in the eye! I then began to worry about rabies!
That left me only one way to go, so I retrieved my 22 rifle and again prodded the raccoon with the muzzle of the barrel, to no avail. So, I placed the muzzle next to the raccoon’s head and fired. That ended the life of the raccoon, but there was a large pool of blood and a carcass to deal with. I decided to clean up in the morning.
In old clothes the next morning, I planned to clean up the mess from the previous night. What did I see upon entering the basement area? No carcass, and yet bloody drag marks stretched across the floor to the cat door!
Being puzzled, I tried to figure out just what happened? There was no question that the raccoon was dead, but what could have dragged the carcass outside? I took a picture of the scene and then cleaned up the mess, still wondering just what had happened?
About noon, my next door neighbor called to ask if I knew where Gabby was? “She is here, why do you ask?” He said: “Let me look again!”
Returning to the phone, he said: “I can see a red fox eating what I thought was Gabby, but I think it is a raccoon in the little wooded area between our houses.”
My guess is that the red fox was out foraging for food during the night and smelled the blood, followed his nose through the cat door and retrieved the carcass, and dragged it across the yard to the wooded area!
Needless to say, that cat door was shut down the next day!
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Follow Us