The Trash Panda
This wildlife story does not have a happy ending.
Hi, I’m Sasha - and I write Stories from an Anxious Traveler. I’ve traveled full-time in my RV since 2018. Each snippet will take you three minutes (or less!) to read.
Curious about some of the things I write about? Check out this entry all about water.
The Trash Panda
When I lived on a plot of land, my dog Bernadette chased birds from the sky and moles from the ground, then slammed her full weight onto them.
Each of these times, I’d bury whatever creature had given its life in my garden. I imagined the soil microbes breaking down the tired bodies, and returning the nutrients to the earth. Plant roots would flourish, and we’d have stronger tomatoes and borage and radishes for years to come.
It’s not easy having a highly-prey-driven dog. It’s hard. It’s even harder having a prey-driven dog on the road full-time, where every piece of exercise is dependent on me providing it to her, at the end of her five-foot yellow-dotted leash.
A week ago I took Bernadette out for her evening walk. A brazen trash panda lurked in the fire pit of the campsite that night, scrounging up leftover smores and hot dog bits from campers of yesteryear. A treasure chest of charcoal and wet firewood. This raccoon hunkered down and imitated a charred log until approached.
And it was the dog, of course, who advanced.
She lunged at the animal, and so began the thrashing: her thick neck resembling a sine wave as she moved.
She began the scene that I had witnessed so many times before: but now, with a larger adversary than typical. When I realized what was happening, fight or flight took over. My fight response? To fly. But I couldn’t, not without abandoning her.
So. I stayed.
My throat burned as I screamed for Jeremiah, who emerged shoeless, but with a flashlight. The raccoon clung to the dog’s chest with all four of its claws, alternating between biting and clawing and trying to disengage himself. Or herself.
Fearing a rabies infection, the two of us shouted from the sidelines as Bernadette wrapped the raccoon in her leash, flinging it back and forth, up and down. I said a silent thanks that she was up to date with her vaccines: the difference between a very sick dog, and a scratched up and sore one.
Her muscular body somehow looked smaller than just minutes earlier. Her thrashing pulled our shoulders and twisted our cores as we alternated the leash between us.
Bernie did not fight alone. We grabbed large boards, trying to dislodge the creature from her jaws and chest so it could have a chance to bolt. Finally, Bernadette dipped her torso low to the ground and the trash panda’s body scraped the gravel from side to side.
I pushed my weight onto its small head, glad I had clad my hiking boots. Only a silent scream emerged from the nocturnal animal, it’s mouth wide without sound.
My heart pushed into my throat as I tried to distribute death to one creature to save another. I could not do it.
Fifteen minutes later, we were soaked with sweat; our slick-coated dog was soaked in mud and blood, but the fight was over.
She had won.
And with that, the dog dropped the dead raccoon, and hurried inside to binge on bowls of ice water, while we wiped her down, examining her wounds, using baby talk only parents could after watching their child kill another living being.
At 11 at night, in the dark, I cleaned the remnants, wrapping the small creature in a worn towel, and placed him in a plastic bag. I could not bury it. This land was not my land.
That night, rain fell on our motorhome, rinsing the earth beside it. Our small raccoon-fighter nuzzled between us as a lifeless creature waited beneath our motorhome until morning.
I’d meant to send out a less gory email, but mostly I want to be able to get this entire image out of my head so I can move on to more pleasant to-be-made memories. Thanks for traveling with me.
Sasha
To go further down the rabbit hole, check out this article on how the US government has been vaccinating raccoons against rabies since 1997. There is only one known case of raccoons transmitting rabies to humans in the United States.
Need something happier to read? Check out my peaceful heron article from earlier this month.