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Oh NO, Rosie Roo!
Pp let Rosie out into the garden for her late-night pee. 20 seconds later I hear barking growling and snarling in the garden, but by the time I had got over there, there was silence, and before I could find some shoes, she came hurtling back in again, with a cut on her nose and smelling VERY STRONGLY of some animal musk.
It doesn't smell like fox, so after some thought, I conclude that Rosie has probably encountered a badger in the garden. Thank goodness she got away with only a cut.
Go AWAY badgers! Rabbits in the garden I can tolerate, but I draw the line at carnivores with honking big claws.
It doesn't smell like fox, so after some thought, I conclude that Rosie has probably encountered a badger in the garden. Thank goodness she got away with only a cut.
Go AWAY badgers! Rabbits in the garden I can tolerate, but I draw the line at carnivores with honking big claws.
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You really don't want to tangle with the badger-folk, Rosie.
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I have never seen a badger except for once in a zoo. The encounter you describe is strangely at odds with my image of stern but kindly Mr. Badger in his down-at- heel slippers and whose bed linen smells beautifully of lavender.
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I think it's that she doesn't handle life well outside of her own very strict parameters. My lurcher rescue contact thinks she was probably born and brought up for her first few months in a shed with very little contact with people or dogs other than her own family :-/
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What about Henning? :)
Poor Rosie - I hope the badger also has a scratch on its nose!
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Meles meles, the Eurasian badger, is a member of family Mustelidae and as such is characteristically grumpy*. They are primarily vermivores--their favorite food being earthworms--but are generally omnivorous, and will eat anything small enough that they can catch, including over 30 types of fruit including blackberries and strawberries. They are nocturnal with peak activity periods during dusk and dawn.
*Most members of family Mustelidae are cranky to various degrees. Otters, for instance, are nature's most adorable assholes.
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Poor Rosie. At least she's good-looking!
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My sister once lived with a Shepherd/??? mix who was very friendly and loving, but was regularly outsmarted by...pretty much everything, including furniture, trees, and other inanimate objects. The prevailing theory was oxygen deprivation due to Digger having spent her puppyhood at the bottom of the pile of her siblings.
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Oh god, the opening of the doors. Lurchers are often so very good at it. Brythen can do them, but fortunately is not very food-motivated, so he mostly uses his skills for when he fancies popping out for a pee, which in the summer is quite handy. Sadly we have been unable to persuade him to learn to close the door after himself, so in the winter it can get a bit chilly!
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Our late senior cat in his declining years came running back in with a sore eye. The scary part was that the vet just said casually, "Oh yes, cobra; usually it's dogs". Dogs will apparently attack a cobra, and get actually bitten, whereas cats will usually back off. Cobras are notoriously cranky too, and the ones around this region spit.
He was OK after antibiotics and everything, and didn't lose the eye, so we think it was just a baby, and he must have basically tripped over it and been spat at, being absent-minded at the best of times and more so as he aged.
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Fortunately it looks like the badger-scratch has healed nicely, it swole up a bit but has gone down again now.
I am now going out into the garden before the dogs and announcing "Badgers! Dogs are coming!" Which probably sounds a bit mad at midnight but hey.
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I'm glad she's better! Actually going out and shouting is not mad at all. It makes perfect sense to give warning for anything that might not want to meet you. I am told that Australians are taught to walk very heavily in overgrown areas, to let snakes know that they are coming (also presumably to announce that they are too big to be useful prey).
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