Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Vexy Does Well


Sunday morning temperature was under 30 with up to 30 mph wind gusts, which made for a cold start.

Met up with Stephanie L ., and we decided to stay inside the tree line to get out of the wind.

I left my wee wolves warm in the truck, and we took Vexy, a dog Steph has had for about a year, out to see the world.

Vexy is a 6-year old who has, up to now, seen no work, but she’s got a little vinegar in her and is not too big. A nice dog who looks good in a Hermes scarf.

The wind was keeping the birds low, but we saw a nice Barred Owl flying overhead like a winged football.

We walked a way with Vexy on leash, as she’s not got too much recall and is an independent thinker. Climbing a creek bank, I spied a leaf-filled depression in the ground, and an open pipe about 12 feet away. A small sign.

I scraped the leaves out of the depression to reveal a leaf-blocked entrance, and Vexy gave a very nice mark. Excellent.

I went back to the creek bottom, picked up the tools, and returned to open up the tight rocky entrance. Reaching in to pull a rock, I thought I felt fur inside. Vexy continued to mark. No doubt now.

I barred to locate the pipe, took off a few inches of dirt that had tree roots, and then popped past the rocks with the posthole digger — a typically shallow dig.

Vexy slid in and latched on.

Long story short, I was quite surprised to find this was not a possum, but a rather quiet raccoon. Excellent.

Vexy scrapped with the raccoon a bit, and then we pulled the dog from the hole before the dog or the raccoon suffered any damage.


Steph blocked the left side of the pipe with the post hole digger, and used the back of the machete to encourage the raccoon to bolt right, where I snared it as it exited the hole.

A quick picture, and the raccoon was released no worse for the experience, and we repaired the sette with the raccoon back inside, timbering over the hole we’d dug and putting leaves back in the exit hole that had been previously blocked. “No animals were harmed in the making of this movie.”


Vexy did a magnificent job for her first dig which was a text-book affair all around. Full applause for her and Stephanie!