War and it's predictions.

  Image: fawn watching raccoon in trap.
  Standing down after two adult females, two adult males and two adolescent Raccoons KIA.  Trap shut.  Deer cam on.  Corn out.  Today when I drove up to the lakehouse I could hear dogs barking  in the distance and knew immediately, (though it has never happened before), that dogs were attacking a raccoon in the trap.

  The lake is a magnet for dumped dogs.  Their fate is usually smallbore death while begging at one of the permanent resident houses around the lake.  We've had a pack as big as 19 ranging the countryside.  It is a constant problem with a consistent solution.  The county won't come do anything about stray dogs unless you trap them first and their solution is to euthanize them.  We cut out the middleman.

  Funny story: My mom, (another librarian), used to HATE us shooting dogs when we first bought the lakehouse in the 60s.  By the 70s she would open the glovebox and pass you the pistol, then start shaking more .22LRs out of the box.

  I got to the bluff over the trap as quick as I could, dropped equipment, charged and unsafetyed the Ruger Mk I.  Wolf Match Target ammo is a reliable feed in this pistol but I only had the one mag.  I approached the pack of four dogs who were busy dragging the havahart trap around with pistol up.  They were concentrating on the coon and never saw me.  I shot the biggest dog behind the leg, low and the rest took off through the brush.  I probably had another quick shot but didn't bother.  The shot dog went down after a ten yard stagger, flopped a couple of times and was gone.  Entry wound, no exit.  Big dog, 60-70 lbs.  Pit Bull mix.  Rough looking.

  I dragged the body up into the tall field grass in the pasture so the vultures could easily see it, sacked up the young female coon, reset the cam and headed back to town.

  No knife on me.  Not very tactical.   If I could have opened the body up it would have been gone in 24 hours under a gaggle of happy black vultures.