This is what passes for a dollface alert in the heterosexual community.

I admire the one doing lazy rolls. Not sure why OP turned this into a hetero dish. It is universally doll face.

Are they swimming for pleasure? Or are they trying to find a way out of the water? I couldn’t tell if they were able to safely get out of that pool.

I made it through to 23 seconds and then died of boredom.

they got out r2

Those critters probably shit rabies into that pool.

R4 In the book Peculiar Patents, there is a patented ramp designed for pools to enable small animals to safely get out of the water if they fall in.

r2 Raccoons with their human-like paws can absolutely get out of that shallow pool with no problem. Even if the pool coping were set way higher, they'd still be able to get out as long as there were pool stairs or pool rail around to grab onto.

If they were panicking, they wouldn't be floating around like they were de-stressing in an Icelandic geothermal pool.

Cute

I don't live in America so this is not my problem but there was a clip on the internet of a man gayly filming a bunch of them on a city street, climbing some garden gate, and suddenly one turned, ran over, jumped up and bit him on the neck. He screamed.

On the thread about these animals, some time ago, no one mentioned this could happen.

[quote] On the thread about these animals, some time ago, no one mentioned this could happen.

Why would someone mention that? Hypothetically, a dog, cat, parrot, etc. could decide to do something like that.

Looks like they stopped filming right before they drowned.

Maybe heterosexuals are not childish enough to subscribe to the notion of “dollface” threads/posts

I FF all threads/posts with that childish term

R11 Ugh I hope they didn’t drown. I do know that animals can drown in pools and it’s very sad. I hate to find even frogs and chipmunks in our pool in New England.

this old retired mountie has raccoons visiting him every night, very sweet

I kissed a coon and I liked it.

Have fun shocking your pool. Raccoons have highly toxic shit that can kill a human very easily. They are not to be be toyed with.

[quote]I FF all threads/posts with that childish term

Oh, good - because you're not wanted here. No one likes a sourgurl.

In California it is illegal not to cover your pool. Of course we ignore such things. I, too, would be grossed out by rabies and ticks and god knows what floating in there. It costs upwards of 5k to have a pool drained, scrubbed and sanitized. This doesn't count how much your water bill will be to refill. If this happens to you, do it. It might help you remember to cover the fucking thing.

We got a few little ramps from Amazon this year after we had baby ducks in the pool.

*

I've grown to HATE those fuckers over the last 20 years.

Dirty, ratchet, violent, nasty fuckers. They'll befoul your pets' water and chow bowls, steal EVERYBODY'S food, loudly fight one another over one fucking morsel of food, and when you challenge them they'll fucking bow up to you like they gon' do something. If they can get under your house they will set up godawful nests in your walls, tear up your insulation, spawn a million huge brown raccoon fleas that will take two years to eradicate, leave their *literally* poisonous black feces everywhere, and spread one of the worst types of roundworm.

OMIGOD how much I HAAAATE them. I'd take one hundred nutria over one breeding pair of raccoons.

What can you do to repel them, R21? Does a hound dog do the job?

Antifreeze Bologna sangwiches, r22.

R22 Coonhound.

My uncle had one for for hunting. I saw this thing scale the side of a pergola to the roof at lightning flash speed to get the vermin raccoon, which it did. They can move, baby. They live to kill them.

R22,

A .22.

That's it, AFAIK. After almost ten years we FINALLY were able get them all out of our floors and walls, then my sister and our handyman "sealed" all the airflow/under-the-house access points with VERY heavy-gauge screening, and for the most part no longer free-feed our outdoor cats. Every evening we put out huge piles of cheap cat chow and water bowls in the neighbor's yard (he was the one responsible for their coming to our street in the first place, so fuck him) at the same time we evening feed our cats.

Still, sometimes I have to stand sentry on the porch with a heavy stick and spray water bottle filled with cayenne pepper + ammonia, just to give my guys a chance to EAT THEIR OWN GOTDAMN INSANELY EXPENSIVE FOOD.

Sorry, R22, the screaming is not aimed at you; I'm sure you're a lovely person.

Perhaps the hound dog solution may work in other regions, but my neighbor had extremely expensive (like $2000+) Coonhounds. They refused to tangle with those raccoons.

I had another neighbor up the street (thankfully now in prison), a big time drug dealer who had two MASSIVE, violent pit bulls that could/did leap fences. At night he'd put out big bowls of chow and water. The minute he went in the house those raccoons hopped his fence and ran to the food.

Pitbulls stepped aside politely as if to say "Please, Sirs--after you!" Every night.

I've never seen anything like that in my life.

R25, etc here.

I think eventually state & federal wildlife/environmental/natural resources agencies are going to HAVE to re-think the concept of "urban wildlife" they've sold to the taxpaying public the last 30 years.

Because "wildlife" that escapes the "wild" and discovers the easy life that is suburban/urban/exurban living rapidly become acculturated to it, and start behaving ENTIRELY differently from their still-wild cousins. They are unafraid of humans or the animals we long-ago bred to handle them. They no longer skulk around the edges of neighborhoods waiting til nightfall. When I was in elementary school in the 1970s, all our books told us raccoons were nocturnal animals, like possums, armadillos, and the big cats.

But that's all changed now. The raccoons in my hood often will pop in before noon, and will try to hang nearby and graze as long as the pet food holds out. When I go out to feed my small cat colony, those fuckers will actually *try to blend in* with the cats that are running up to eat.

It would be funny, endearing even, if they weren't such [bold]THUG LIFE[/bold]-ish.

Maybe if we didn't continuously destroy wildlife habitat to replace it with shitty McMansions built in housing plans that are named after whatever animal was chased away (Fox Ridge, Raccoon Hollow) then those awful "thug" animals wouldn't be in our backyards.

What'd I tellya?

And his friend who just ran off, is 2x this one's size.

I think I'm starting to hate these animals. They have creepy hands and they attack people. People make out they're cute, but they're evil. I hope they don't make it to England like the American gray squirrel which have ruined so much that was good and have decimated our red squirrel population.

[quote]I hope they don't make it to England like the American gray squirrel which have ruined so much that was good and have decimated our red squirrel population.

It'd serve you right, R29/OP, for introducing that nasty European starling to North America. 😋

Starlings are just *barely* 2nd in the ranks of disgusting, filthy, trashy animals.

Just like raccoons, starlings befoul any water basin meant for cats and dogs. Many times while feeding campus cats, I'd get to a feed station and see several starlings BATHING and shitting in the larger water bowls. You practically needed a chisel to get all the muck out of those bowls, then you had to rinse and disinfect them. They even eat the dry cat food we put out.

Plus like raccoons, starlings are communal and extremely noisy. I could be here all day with starling stories.

[quote]European starling to North America.

I don't think they came from England - and I hardly ever see them here, apart from a supermarket car park not far from my house. God knows why they hang out there.

R29, I’ll trade you all the English shitbirds in the US that are killing our native songbirds for all the American gray squirrels in England.

What a mess we’re all in with invasive species.

[quote][R29], I’ll trade you all the English shitbirds in the US that are killing our native songbirds for all the American gray squirrels in England.

How long have they been in the USA? How did they get there?

Fine, get a kangaroo...

Would you get into that pool after raccoons had been in it? They’d have to clean the thing out.

Where do you trashy holler folk live where you feed your pets outside? Even goats have barns. Open-air animal feeding and watering is expressly forbidden where I live. HOAs and the County will fine you; apartments will put an eviction notice on your door, and you'll have to explain yourself to the judge, who will let you stay in your apartment on a first offense, after you pay court costs and the fine for feeding wildlife. Despite this, we still have a wildlife problem in my urban neighborhood, complete with coyotes, javelina, raccoons, and way too many feral cats, which are now considered 'wildlife' as mentioned in R26. On the bright side, we are allowed to shoot pigeons with air rifles and slingshots - and we are not permitted to feed pigeons either.

[quote]and way too many feral cats, which are now considered 'wildlife'

Don't feral cats keep other vermin in check? Do you have rats where you live, R36?

No R37, there are too many fucking cats. Animal Control and the Humane Society both gave up on their spay and release programs in 2022. We don't have a lot of rats around here - they seem to like to hang in areas with lots of citrus trees.. My dog mostly keeps the cats away from the house, but there are probably over 50 of them in my subdivision alone. The coyotes and the occasional hawk eat the cats this time of year. I have a collection of half-eaten cat porn. But there are still always too many of them shitting and pissing on the house and planter beds. During covid, somebody was killing the cats, because for the first time in years, there were virtually no feral cats around. But now we're back to full cattery status.

What's “half eaten cat porn” mean?

I'll show you some later. I don't have time to post it now. It's the opposite of dollface though. It's pieces of cats torn apart by coyotes (and one hawk cat porn pic too). Coyotes usually eat everything but the skull and maybe the tail and hindquraters. Hawks eat from the belly and often don't finish the cat, so it's basically a gutted cat. With the coyotes you'll find the head laying about 15 ft from the tail, with maybe a few chunks in-between. Or a cat that is mostly eaten except maybe the legs and tail

[quote]I'll show you some later.

Thank you, but no. Your description is more than enough.

What a world you live in, R40!

[quote] I have a collection of half-eaten cat porn.

What do you mean by "collection"?

& where, roughly, are you in the world?

R33, allegedly the starling and many other non-native bird species were brought to the US by some idiot nimrod in the 1800s who thought it would be just peachy to establish in Central Park every bird species mentioned in Shakespeare.

And that's how we got starlings disturbing the peace before dawn and shitting in our pet water bowls in 2023.

R36, I get and respect your points, but the only feasible, proven solution to irresponsible cat owners and feral cat populations is T/N/R. In my Southern city, Animal Control spent DECADES trapping thousands of cats per year, keeping them *maybe* 48 hours, then herding them by the dozens into gas chambers and killing them, because there were just too many cats to euthanize them one by one with an attendant and a needle. And still the population kept growing.

20 or so years ago some of us concerned citizens started TNR programs, completely self-funded. Each altered cat receives a tipped left ear for easy recognition. And we kept stats. In areas where there were established cat colonies that were in our program, the numbers of kittens reduced dramatically. In my own case, where people for years dumped cats and kittens, between 2009 and 2014 my colony went from 30 cats to seven. All through natural attrition and re-homing to indoor-only homes, and barns/horse farms.

We persuaded our city council to officially recognize our program, and establish a no-kill cat shelter, giving us ten years to work the program, then revisit the issue.

Unless you're an absolute nut, nobody WANTS hordes of roaming cats around them being all ratty and diseased, and fertile. But they won't just disappear because...HOA. It takes dedicated people to do this for a very long time, but the numbers don't lie.

I agree with you R43, but nobody's doing it here anymore because it costs $150 a cat now. There were a few doing TNR when the clinics would do it for $Free - $40 each, and have neuter clinics, but not at current prices. So it's up to the coyotes.

Most home “hauntings” are actually raccoons in the attics or crawlspaces. They are the #1 home disturber on the U.S. — rats are meek in comparison.

It sounds like r36 is in Florida which has more wildlife challenges than the average suburban area elsewhere in the country and thus has strict laws about outdoor feeding.

Cats in the olden days used to be indoor/outdoor. It was thought to be cruel to keep them indoors. That changed over time with declining populations of songbirds and predators like coyotes encroaching further into suburbia as expansion disturbs their ecosystems. Back in the 70s we never heard of coyotes, raccoons or skunks in our area. I live here now and they're regulars. A local TV station ran a clip of a coyote attacking and killing a cat in the middle of the day.

Oh, that's too bad, R44. Been there, done that. We've been blessed to have a few wealthy angels to underwrite parts of our program; it's partially how we were able to get 2-3 mobile spay/neuter vehicles.

Here's something that may interest you though, R44. 2 years before I retired, I received a call at work from one of our newer Vet School profs, whose area of focus is community animal-human dynamics. She ask4d if I or my TNR conference would be interested in one of the new Petsmart grants for individuals or groups doing our kind of work.

So, here ya go, and I hope it works out for you.

R46, you're right about the coyotes. They're becoming more prevalent in my city as well; thankfully they haven't established in my neighborhood--yet.

Raccoons I hate and fight; coyotes scare me. And the big thing is they interbreed easily with dogs. So that has dramatically increased their numbers.

In my best friend's tony neighborhood, they can't let their dogs and pet cats loose to run around their own properries, because they're being snapped up and dragged off by coyotes.

R20 I like this clip a lot. In the end, the baby raccoon is set free. I thought it was interesting how they structured the training and care of the raccoon while he was with that couple. It’s pretty touching.

[quote]Raccoons I hate and fight;

What do you mean exactly?

[quote]coyotes scare me. And the big thing is they interbreed easily with dogs. So that has dramatically increased their numbers.

Are you SURE?

R50, I worded that poorly. I meant I hate raccoons now that I've witnessed them up close, and I fight every day to minimize their destructiveness to my home and my pets.

Yes, R51, at least where I live.

Last winter I saw this demonic-looking thing on the greensward near my house. Eventually it skulked up to the huge vacant lot across the street from my home. Sat there and... stared. For THREE days just sat and stared at my yard and the two yards next to me. Not like any dog I'd ever seen. It was unnerving.

Finally I called Animal Control, and they sent out a woman with a catchpole. Took them almost a week to catch it; meanwhile 2 of the cats in my colony disappeared.

A couple days later they called and told me it was a Coydog. Then it all made sense.

Pic of said demon Coydog:

OMG - that's SO spooky, R52!

R52 should get credit for story of the week on DL.