wild animal scare
Okay, so this post is going to prove how uneducated I am in the wild animal category…but I will allow myself to be humiliated by my ignorance to share with you the hilariousness of our day.
I was in the laundry room this morning when I heard a frantic chirping. I figured Bess, our dog, was chasing a bird and we needed to save it. I hollered to the girls to go rescue the bird and like the animal lovers they are, they ran outside to the save the poor thing. A minute later Blythe came running in yelling that it wasn’t a bird it was some fur-covered animal hiding behind a huge box on our back porch. Well, that made no sense to me, because it was definitely a high pitched chirping sound coming from the distressed animal and I didn’t know any fur-covered animals who could possibly sound like that. I called Richard and had him listen to the sound. I called my mom to listen. Both of them had no idea what it was, but my mom said I should call Animal Control and she declared “it would be just your luck to bitten by a rabies infested creature, and that is the last thing you need right now!”
Well, my rural county doesn’t have Animal Control, so I called the Sheriff’s office thinking they would have a recommendation of who I should call. I wanted to figure out what it was before we tried rescuing it because I didn’t want any of us to be attacked – but this high pitched chirping thing was really driving us crazy – so I wanted the answer in a hurry!
The Sheriff’s office said to call Fish and Game, but then the deputy started laughing and said, “I KNOW what you have! I can hear it and that sound is a rock chuck!” I don’t know how I have made it through 35 years of life without knowing that a rock chuck made a very annoying chirping sound, but somehow I have.
So, Blythe and Keziah and I went outside to rescue the rock chuck. We thought it was stuck between the box and our house. We tied up Bess. We got some long boards, brooms and the mop to use in moving the box. We moved the box a little, but the rock chuck didn’t leave. Slowly we figured out that the rock chuck wasn’t stuck, it was terrified. It was trying to hide from Bess. It didn’t know that we had tied Bess up and it was free to run away in safety. We tried to coax it out, to push it out, to kind of frighten it out…but no, it would not budge. It liked its little shelter and continued to chirp that crazy sound at us.
We decided to leave it alone and maybe it would just leave on its own when it felt safe again. After another hour of listening to that horrible sound, we decided we had to do something else. I worked up my courage and then went out and tried to move the box with a lot of grunting and straining. Finally, the box moved way out from the wall and when there was no more shelter, the rock chuck took off.
Yeah! No more chirping!
And now we know what sound a rock chuck makes and will never mistake it for a baby porcupine again!
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
Serious! You actually went out and smiled to it, then talked to it? “I’m going to help you Mr. Rockchuck!?!”
Poor lil’ thing! (The rockchuck, that is…)
That is a great story! I bet it made the deputy’s day, too :)
I also think it is important to let people know it is standing up in the picture. At first I thought it was laying down on it’s back. But it’s standing there like a game of ‘hide and seek!’ Pretty cute, except for the fang! I’m glad it’s gone!
We had one of those in our yard a year or two ago also, making that chirping noise. Our dogs were going crazy. It was stuck in a hole in a tree in our yard. They are cute!
I should have just called you instead of making a fool of myself with the Sheriff’s office. I had no idea what it was! I thought it must be a wounded or dying baby porcupine!
lol…. this gave Russ and I a good giggle. Reminds me of Russ pinning down the badger in our yard… fish and game didn’t laugh. That’s when I learned they drown skunks. I had no idea! Thank you for sharing. :)