OMG....I think I'm Going to Cry.....
 

After what happened here last night, I'm terrified to let my dogs out in my backyard. Everything was fine when we went to bed last night, but woke up this morning to find our pond trashed!!! The d*** raccoons got into my pond and took all three of my large Koi and over half of my goldfish. My favorite goldfish, who would follow me around in the pond and beg to be petted, is one of the missing ones. Plants and rocks are knocked over. I don't know if I can bear to go out there and clean up the mess. Fish scales are everywhere, as well as the remains of my fish. Last time I took my dogs out, the crows were feeding on the remains and I had to come back inside....couldn't handle the sight. Sorry this i gross, but I'm just sick about it!

Now I'm scared to let my dogs outside even under close supervision...especially at night. Do raccoons like to feast on Yorkies too???

:aimeeyork Yes, raccoons will attack small yorkie dogs. :aimeeyork It is not safe to ever have them out at night. racoons are nocturnal and scavage for food in the night.
I am sorry about your fish, pond. That sucks.:aimeeyork But, it is a raccoons favorite meal, and they saw those fish as easy , yummy targets. :aimeeyork My parents had a pom. years ago that was attacked by a mother raccoon. The thing nearly chewed off the poms leg. The dog survived with emergency treatment. She was a tiny dog too. Raccoons are agressive and will do anything to eat.
It is not worth the chance one of those , snatching a beautiful Yorkie. :aimeeyork

I am so sorry about your fish. The same thing happened to us. The raccoons ate our favorite goldfish who would come to us & they left quite a mess. :(

I don't know if they would want to snack on a yorkie but I would be careful so that your babies don't get into any fights with a raccoon. They can be quite vicious when cornered.

If you decide to get more fish this may help. A farmer I used to get hay from had his chickens getting eaten by raccoons. Once I stopped by there at dark. He had spotlight set up with a radio on. All of his chickens, pheasants and ducks were together in his yard sleeping under the spotlight. He said they all came up at dusk to sleep there by themselves. Evidently the raccoons were kept at bay from the light & voice from the radio. No more missing chickens.

Also, you may want to try a net over the pond. Hope this helps.

I'm so sorry about your fish:( I don't know if raccoons attack dogs but they can be very dangerous and carry rabies so i would be careful

I am so sorry that happened. I had it happen a couple years ago to my pond also. I know it is very difficult when you get attached to a fsh and lose it. My brother in law trapped our raccoon and relocated it and havent had any problems since. I really dont think a raccoon would go after a yorkie but you wouldnt want them around one since they are rabie carriers. Again I am so sorry. I know exactly how you feel

I have no clue of Raccoon eating habits, but they are mean little suckers! Before we moved to our house we live in now, I rented a Town house and it was by a Marsh area and at night we would see all sorts of raccoons running around the field by our building. We went to go to Wallmart late at night and their was a "sick " one by our door to get to the van, it made noises at us and acted as if it would come after us, they usually would scamper off if you made a noise. I had to call the police station and they came out to take a look at it, the officer said it looked to be rabid:eek: with the way it acted. He had to shoot it. It did turn out to have rabies too!

I am sorry about your pond and fish:(

I am SO sorry for your losses. :(

I know that we can even get attached to fish - especially when they attach themselves to us - and when we lose them it's a low blow, even though other people might think it's silly. (my brother had a gold fish Jaws that we got at a carnival and he lived for almost 11 years - we got him when I was really young so it was hard on me when he died).

Raccoons will attack a small animal if they're hungry enough, so please keep a very close eye on your little ones. Big hugs to you.

PS - I think there is a screen or something you can put over a fish pond to keep animals out. I don't remember where I heard about it though.

Sorry about your fish, coons love water and fish and if a dog would corner a mom and babies, look out she probably would go after the dog but most coons would let loose some screams and run for the nearest tree to get away from the dog, they don't like to put themselves in situations like that unless they were protecting their young or something was wrong w/ them, you ought to see what my does w/ my lab, climbs all over him and loves checking out the ears and mouth, of course the coon was raised with the lab, they are best friends, but I don't let my shorkie near her, when she is around and sees jovie, she makes this certain noise and jovie always runs away from her, I don't think she would hurt her but I am not taking any chances, even with a coon that I know as good as my other pets. Maybe you could play a radio for a few days to keep the coon away from the pond, they will be back. good luck

I'm so sorry for what happened...That is sooo frustrating! The chicken wire and other ideas sound like a good idea for the future, but am so sorry that it happened this time.:(

Im sorry that happened to you. :( Theres always the option of putting live traps out. We're doing that to catch a family of bunnies that are tearing up my garden. Then we will take them out to the country and let them go. That way, you could salvage your pond and maybe restock it.

Thank you all so much. We've had them take one or two before, but nothing ever like this. My pond is about 12 X 14 feet and 4 feet deep except for a couple plant ledges on two sides. There were two big pieces of slate on step stools in the bottom for them to hide under. Normally the raccoons will not go in the pond unless they fall in. And they must have, because the slate and my water lilies, on top of the slate, were laying on the bottom of the pond this morning. I finally got up the nerve to go out and clean up the mess, but when I saw half of my largest Koi in the middle of the lawn, I almost lost it. Bless my daughters heart, she went out and picked all of the pieces up for me. Those were my babies and I just couldn't do it.

When I take my pups out tonight...I will be armed and ready!!!

I was gonna' say that the pond isn't deep enough but 4 feet is!! I have about an 18 X 20' with about 4 1/2' deep with the slate caves also but knock on wood I haven't had a problem with the raccoons and I have chickens also. I've seen raccoons in our neighborhood but they haven't come to my pond. I have 5 dogs though and I figure that they must smell all those smells and not come in the yard. I'm so sorry you lost your Koi and your goldfish, what were their names? (Come on, if they follow you I know you named them! I've named my Koi!)

Yes, actually mine is about 4 1/2 feet too. I dug it that deep on purpose so they would be better protected from both the coons and the blue heron. I have a fake floating turtle that looks pretty realistic and the darn coon even took a bite out of one of its legs...they must really be hungry.

I never named most of them, but the large gold Koi was named Harley and there was a fantail gold fish that was orange and white. Her head was mostly white and she had orange lips. I named her Hotlips.

I would trap the raccoons and relocate them, but there are just too many around here and to make matters worse some of the neighbors feed them. The lady behind me was feeding them until another neighbor with small children asked her to stop because he was afraid they might attack his kids. By the way, we nicknamed this lady that was feeding the raccoons "Doglady" because she would lure loose dogs into her yard, tie them up on the deck and then call animal control. Ironic she hates dogs but will feed the raccoons.

Oh, I forgot to say this but there are pics of my pond and my Koi on my "Other Stuff" album on my page. It's hard to tell from the pic, but the gold Koi was about 18 inches long.

I am so very sorry for you. How hearbreaking. We had a Koi pond when we lived in Albuquerque. They would come to the edge of the pond when the front door was opened (the pond was in our front courtyard). They were so incredibly tame that they would eat out of your hand.

I would suggest getting a live trap, and move the raccoon far away from your home.

I'm sorry about your fish. My cousin recently had a similar experience with her pond and coyotes. She lives on a small farm and has a good sized pond. She had always wanted chickens and ducks so when she moved to her farm she got them and everything was doing fine. She had the ducks and chickens for almost a year until one by one they started disappearing. At first she thought it was her rat terriers getting them but it was the coyotes.

So she ended up getting night vision goggles to use. She pulls them out when she knows I'm coming up with Bella so we can keep an "eye" out for her when she goes potty after dark. It makes me feel a little better, but it still terrifies me to let her outside after dark. Although her dogs are VERY protective of Bella, I still don't feel better until she's back in and laying down for the night.

We have a creek behind our house and lots f ducks. There was a mother with 11 babies and the neighbor was feeding them ne eveing and a 'coon came out a slaughtered the whole bunch of them. It was horrible. We set live traps and relocated, he has a cousin or something that is in pest control. He was worried about the children and my dogs, and he called animal control, who would do absolutely nothing! I just wanted to say, I have an idea of how you feel I am sorry about your fish, they are excellent pets. I have been told that fsh have an attention span/memory of like a few seconds, but I don't believe it for a minute. I have had many who did the same things yours did. Would follow us and eat from our hand. One even liked to be petted and cupped in your hand. It was neat to have the big guy around, but I am happier knowing he is in the woods somewhere and everybody here is safe.

Coons are brave and smart! :(
 

1 raccoon during mating season took out all 12 of our 7-9 pound hens in just 2 days! When they discovered that (to their dismay) we keep an akita/black lab in our yard, they would jump out of the tree above the coop and land on the roof. Now that was a mess to clean up!

p.s. please keep a good eye on your babies and don't let them out after dark! (tell them they have a new curfew:) )

So sad. I'm so sorry. We don't have Racoons in England.
Although my sister has problems with Herons with her pond. She has chicken wire over them which keeps them out, but whether it would work with Racoons I don't know.


Hugs Shirl x x

They actually disproved it on MythBusters :D

You can't convince me otherwise. My fish recognize my voice and maybe even my footsteps. When I go to feed them, they come right to the edge of the pond...but if anyone else comes up, they will disappear to the bottom of the pond again. It is obvious that they know me. And whenever I go in the pond...they hover around me so close that I have to be very careful to not step on them or hurt them.

After further detective work, it's obvious that two or more raccoons were involved. We figured out from overturned rocks etc. that one fell into the pond and scared the fish to the surface where they were fair game to other raccoons.

We have so many around here that relocating is not an option but we do keep a very close eye on our pups at night. Izzy has cornered them in trees in our yard before and that's me nervous. I have even seen them on our fence is broad daylight and when I approach them they just sit there and look at me like what's your problem.

Yesterday I finally saw my light gold fish that loves to be petted. She must have been hiding. I know she's a girl because all the boy fishies are chasing her around like crazy. Yes, I'm a backyard breeder!!! And baby fishies are on the way!!!

I'm so sorry for you; I love fish and it's terrible to go out in the morning and find the carnage that raccoons can leave behind:(.

I'm going to ask a friend of mine who has a huge koi pond and has had raccoon problems (they killed two of her flamingoes..talk about going out to something horrible:eek:) and I know that there are some of her neighbors who also feed the coons...I know she had some traps set up but think she took them down and they decided they'd use another approach....I'll try to find out what they're doing now to deter the coons from coming into the yard. I know they aren't using any toxic substances b/c of all the koi and the exotic birds she's got. If I find anything out, I"ll post it here.

I would appreciate that. We don't usually have a problem with the raccoons because of the depth of the pond...but this was a mass attack. Usually it's the herons, but they normally just take one smaller fish and fly away. I prefer not to net my pond because I'm in and out of it all of the time to do maintenance not to mention it's not exactly natural looking. I love to watch the birds bath in it. The other day I was watching a hummingbird hover in the waterfall. We may have to resort to an electric fence we can turn on at bedtime.

I am so sorry,they can do so much damage... i tell you i had my fill about wildlife around here... need to start a new post.

Me too...I love wildlife, but not the predator kind in my backyard.

I'm so sorry for you!!! I would be sick if that happened in my pond. We live in the country and I know I've been very lucky so far. My pond is also about 4' deep and I've had some of my koi for over 15 years. We have motion lights around the pond and maybe that helps some. I know they go off & on all night long so somethings moving out there. Maybe you could try that along with the radio. Hopefully they won't be back.