Ricky and Dakota

Over the past several months we have had a uninvited daily visitor to our backyard. The dude crawls over our fence saunters across the lawn and helps himself to whatever he wants. He does this with complete disregard for common courtesy, never mind the fact that he's trespassing. My Baby Momma and I are concerned. Being a complete stranger, we tagged this guy with the name of Ricky... Ricky the Racoon.

Ricky has found himself a little honey hole of food from our dog Dakota's Autodine feeder. I have known Dakota longer and possibly spent more on him than any other member of our family. He and I have memories that go back to our bachelor days. No one else in the house shares these memories nor would we want them to. I've always told him (usually while drinking beers together) some day he would earn his keep. The day would come where the investment would pay off. Dakota would just look back at me with a steely resolve as if to say "I got your back brother". Now that day has come and he's like the Maytag Repairman. He sat around for so long without any calls he's gotten fat and lazy and nobody is buying what he's selling. The big oaf just lays with his head between his paws and watches Ricky devour his food. Not a problem... for the last 12 years there always been plenty. I heard the boss man telling the little ones just the other day that it was important to share. Hey what's a few kibbles between mammals?

All the while my little girls love to watch Ricky. For some reason my two year old usually spots him first. Excited chirps of "Wicky here, Wicky here" set us into alert condition two. This requires one adult to maintain a defensive position on the back deck perimeter. A shovel or some other object that can inflict blunt force trauma to the head is required. As long as Ricky keeps his distance, we agreed to live in peaceful co-existence. That was until my brother-in-law came over about a week ago.

Brother in Law brought with him a friend of his. My Brother in Law is pretty much fearless and has no reservation about chasing a rattlesnake down a river (I've seen him do it). He comes up with this genius plan of surrounding Ricky and somehow trapping him (the details weren't all that detailed). Well, us other two guys aren't going to look like girly men so we say "yeah... let's do it". I've got to give bro in law props though, his plan would have worked. The problem wasn't the plan, it was the execution of the plan. Once Ricky identified that he was being surrounded and that the walls were closing in he started to make his Houdini like moves. First running at me like an animal in strict survival mode. I yelled (some onlookers have described it as a shrill scream) to scare Ricky... yeah I wanted to scare him into submission. Well he turned and ran at bro in laws friend. That dude jumped out of the way so high and so fast he looked like the FTD man leaping to deliver a dozen roses. Ricky escaped through a hole under the fence. I've got to give it to Ricky though. He was smart enough to not run at the one guy who might have tried to catch him.

All the while Dakota laid there and watched. He had a look on his face as if to say, "These guys are a joke. What kind of half baked plan was that? If I didn't have this here thyroid condition I would have tracked that SOB down and showed him what a good chewin on is". We've only seen Ricky once since the event and my daughters keep asking me where he is. Somehow they know what rake I was holding when Ricky made his run at me. My daughter Kinsey spotted the rake the other day and asked me if that was the rake I scared Ricky off with. I like her version of what happened. It's good to be Dad who they believe to be fearless.