The raccoon that attacked and maimed the 4-year-old Maltese, Rosie, at her home on the 2100 block of 10th Avenue West, may have been the same one that attacked another dog a few weeks earlier on the same block.
Leona Crow, who has lived at the 3400 block of 10th Avenue West since she was born, and where her family has lived since 1909, said that on July 7, she had momentarily let her 9-pound Pomeranian/poodle, Pompey, out to do his business. At that momen, the dog was suddenly attacked by a raccoon. The raccoon had latched onto the dog and pulled it into the bushes. She and her son chased after the raccoon who released the dog but not after it had chewed him up pretty good. The dog was a "bleeding mass of fur," according to Crow.
Crow's son swatted at the raccoon and throwing backyard items at it to run it off. Eventually, it disappeared.
Crow immediately took the dog to the Emerald City Emergency Clinic at Stone Way North to get Pompey patched up.
The 10-year-old dog was bitten multiple times and has not been able to walk or run since, though doctors, after about $4,000 in veterinary bills, assured Crow that Pompey was on the mend. Pompey had belonged to Crow's sister who recently passed away.
About two weeks after Pompey's attack, another dog (this one a 5-pound Maltese named Rosie) had been attacked by a raccoon in her backyard, as was reported in last week's News. In the attack, Rosie's hind leg was pulled violently through a gap between the fence and deck, mangling the hind leg so severely that it was later amputated by a veterinary doctor at the same clinic on Stone Way.
The raccoon that did the damage behaved in the same, unusually aggressive manner as did the raccoon responsible for Pompey's injuries. Crow believes it's the same raccoon, though this one was traveling alone, while Rosie's raccoon was traveling with another adult and two smaller raccoons. While Pompey's raccoon was aggressive, she doesn't think it was carrying rabies.
"It wasn't frothing at the mouth or looking particularly upset," she said. "The raccoon was just looking at me as if saying, 'What's all the fuss about?'"
Crow's backyard has two fountains, a cherry tree, apple trees and berry bushes, and there are bird feeders. She is a member of the Audubon Society and loves to attract birds to her back yard.
But she realizes it attracts raccoons, too. She has always seen raccoons visiting her back yard but this is the first time in her family's history that a raccoon has behaved so violently.
"They've always been good to us," she said. "My son used to feed them and play with them. They were indifferent to us."
The rogue raccoon, she believes is a male, or boar. "The boars are terrible," she said. "We've got a bad one, evidently."[[In-content Ad]]
