Guess what I Found!

I was working in the front yard. Ray was yelling in the back yard.

As always, I let him go to it for a bit. After all, dogs must bark even if their 'bark' is more along the lines of a foghorn crossed with a seal. After a few minutes, when I realized that not only was Ray not stopping, he was using his "I FOUND SOMETHING" voice, I put down my rake and went to investigate.

I'm telling you, there's something there!

OMG, this is SO exciting.

Ray was in the back corner of the yard near the shed, his nose pressed through the weathered wooden slats of the fence, his tail wagging. As I watched, he pulled his snout out, raised his head to yell, did a little dance, then stuck his nose back through the fence.

As I walked towards him I wondered what had caught Ray's attention. This winter, a kamikaze squirrel moved into our shed. It launches itself at whomever opens the shed door and the noise it has been making inside its living quarters has been driving the hound crazy. But Ray wasn't yelling at the shed, he was yelling through the fence at our behind-us-and-over-one neighbor's shed. I wondered if they had a kamikaze squirrel too. I also noticed a newly-dug mole trail through part of yard and wondered if maybe he had tracked the mole somewhere.

"What's up, Ray?" I called to my dog as I got a bit closer.

Ray turned, and with his mouth open in a big grin, excitedly pranced to me, then back to the fence looking over his shoulder with a "You gotta see this," glance.

I followed the dog to the fence and peered sideways through the board-on-board slats. I saw nothing.

Ray, danced back and forth letting loose with deep from the belly yells.
"Well, whatever it was is gone," I said to my dog.

Ray didn't believe me.

There! Did you hear that?

Tail wagging, panting with excitement, Ray danced and yelled.

I turned from the fence, "C'mon, Ray," I said to the excited dog as I walked away.

Ray ignored me.

"Ray, come," I said sternly.

Ray ignored me some more, yelling and dancing.

I turned back to retrieve my dog and drag him away when out of the corner of my eye, through the fence, I saw movement. I stopped. An animal was slinking along the fence towards our neighbor's shed. The color of the animal was similar to most other woodland creatures but the pattern of the ringed tail was unmistakable.

Ray, the Redtick Coonhound, had found himself his first raccoon.

(Here's about 30 seconds of yelling. It went on for over an hour. I kept dragging him away and, although I hated to do it, I finally had to lock him up in the house.)