Wildlife: Heidi - Awaiting the Delivery, 1 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
Tonight was one of the good nights.

I gathered a bag of black, seedless grapes and a few large flour tortillas along with the usual dog food (always a favorite) and was waiting at the back door for the male cardinal to finish his evening snack when I caught a glimse of raccoon ears beneath the feeder. It was Trouble. When I opened the door, he loped away toward the forest. I stepped out and called to him.

It was still daylight. Visibility was excellent. Although I haven't mentioned it, I've managed recently to extend my ability to call them back when they are afraid to include Trouble and HRH. Still, I reached the back of the yard just in time to see him disappear into the trees. Bummer. I walked over to dish #1 and was just about to start putting food into it, when I heard a stir in the trees. I looked up to see Trouble coming back over the fence - enthusiastically I might add. The dish beside which I was crouching was just 5-6 ft from where he was re-entering the yard so I was a bit surprised.

I remained where I was, and he walked up to within about 2 ft from me. He had arrived before I'd had the chance to put any food in the dish, so I reached slowly into the bag...this frightened him and he turned and ran back to the fence. I called to him. At the fence, with his back to me, poised to jump onto the fence and retreat, he paused for a moment, listened to my voice, and then turned and came back; but again as I tried to get the food out of the bag he fled.

We were to repeat this same process some 4 times before I was finally able to withdraw a handful of luscious, black grapes. I held them out for him to see. With that he seemed to understand, and so while I continued to take out a few more handfuls of grapes and of dog food and put them on the ground near the dish, he waited about 2 feet away.

When I had put down a sufficient starting amount of food, I slowly rose to my feet. This did not frighten him even at such close range. I backed slowly away toward my bench, backing so that I could detect any sign that he might be about to run and might, therefore, be able to take corrective action.

As I sat down, he put his nose into the empty dish. Pushing it around a bit, he seemed clearly disappointed by the empty dish even though it was surrounded by food. I found this most interesting since I've long found that while domestic dogs understand the dish and are willing to eat from the dish, they've never truly embraced the concept of the dish but will all to frequently opt to drag food out of the dish, especially anything larger than a bite or 2. Raccoons, on the other hand, even wild raccoons seem to really "get" the dish idea and to prefer their food thusly contained and seperated from the ground.

Being flexible, once he got over the initial disappointment of the empty bowl, Trouble began to eat the items on the ground around it. The grapes were an immediate hit. He walked around picking them out from the dogfood nuggets, turning them each over a few times between his paws in an apparent attempt to clean the dirt off before popping them into his mouth. This time I had left them out of the fridge over night so they were not cold.

It was still light out, and I was kicking myself for my failure to drag the camera along. A few times when something scared him, I was able to reassure him. One such sound, that of neighbors arriving home, slamming car doors, and talking loudly caused him to raise up onto his hind legs to look. I offered verbal reassurance, and he resumed his meal.

Then, very abruptly, he cast a glance toward the forest, listened for a moment and then started to leave. He was not running away from any sound in the yard(s), was not "frightened" but was, none the less, determined to leave. He seemed to "know" what he was doing, and no amount of cajoling would change his mind. At the top of the fence, he paused, his hind legs resting on the top horizontal bar of the fence, his front paws braced on the other side of the fence a bit lower. It was a very catlike position, and he remained there for several minutes, his head low on the other side of the fence, very clearly looking at something on the ground beyond the fence. Moments later he disappeared into the trees and was gone.

No sooner had he departed than I saw a brown patch of fur moving on the side of the old, rotten, hollow tree just behind the Heidi tree. I called to it, and Heidi emerged at the top of the fence and climbed down into the yard. This, I thought, was a most interesting development for even though Trouble had managed to get past Heidi when she charged him last night and had managed to eat with her there, tonight he had clearly opted to leave before he was through and while there were still lots of yummy grapes on the ground - and apparently because he had heard and seen Heidi's approach and had decided to leave her to dine alone. It seemed that even sweet, ripe grapes were not enough to warrant putting up with her grumpiness today.

Below is a picture of Trouble from last night.

This message was edited Apr 24, 2007 10:27 PM