Apparently, it's 'coon huntin season

There are two things I have been unable to call Conker off of. The first are cats, the second raccoons. I always have to go get him when he goes after a cat or raccoon. If the animal vanishes into a bush or up a tree, he will come back, but as long as the chase is on, his ears tune me out. I can call him off deer, turkey, people, dogs, birds, squirrels, skunks (thankfully), and rabbits, which I think is a very good list for a dog with high prey-drive like a Shiba. But not cats or raccoons.

Last night Conker decided to take off after one of the "resident" coons who I sometimes see in the front yard late at night. The raccoon ran around the side of the house. Conker cornered the thing then began to fight. Due to the darkness, I could not see exactly what happened, but me yelling at Conker to leave the raccoon and to come back didn't work, so I grabbed the closest object I could, which happened to be one of my Mother's metal watering cans, and heaved it into the fray. The noise the can made momentarily broke up the fight and gave the coon the chance to escape up the fence.

I don't know how big the raccoon was, and I don't know if Conker hurt it.

Once the coon was up the fence, I was able to call Conker to me. He strutted over, huffing proudly, seemingly unhurt. I immediately picked him up and carried the dumbass inside. I gave him a thorough examination in the brightly lit kitchen and discovered a small bit of blood on one paw. Once I turned it over, I saw the entire underside of the paw was covered with blood.

The cut on his foot is about 1/3 inch long, 1/6 inch deep, and flayed back about 1/4 inch of the pad. It's a bit of a flap but relatively stays in place, so I think it'll heal fine on it's own.
I looked for other wounds but found none, much to my relief. I let Conker go for a moment, and in that instant, he rushed into the back yard and went looking for the raccoon again.

Dammit, he didn't learn that coons are dangerous. He learned that coons are fun to chase and fight with

Anyways, after I retrieved my stupid dog, I took him into the bathroom and subjected him to the torturous process of washing off the dirty bloody paw. It was almost as if I'd drained the life out of him, he was so pitiful looking as I washed his paw, I could hardly see any resemblance to the fierce warrior he had been only minutes before.

I knew this would happen eventually, the damn things come into the yards and climb on the fences fairly frequently. Until now, none of the dogs had fought with a raccoon, just chased and fenced them.
So Conker has a sliced foot pad. It looks okay now, but he limps, and due to the nature of the cut, I can't take him hiking since dirt will get into it but won't come out as easily as it got in. I am oh so happy about this.

Dogs can be stupid.

I've discovered that Juneau can get along with other dogs!  If she is introduced to them slowly, off-leash, she will get along.  If she's kept on-leash or they come barreling up to her all bets are off.  I've been working with her for a while and she is good enough to take her to the dog park during slow hours when only a few other dogs are around.
She still has a few problems with smaller dogs, smaller than Conker, but for the most part she is doing quite well.  What she does with these smaller dogs is locks on with her Border Collie eyes and follows them really really closely and obsessively. Some of them don't like it and I often have to take her to the other side of the park, have her sit and try to distract her with a ball.  But once I can get her attention on the ball...

 That's all she sees.  She turns into a typical Border Collie with gottagettheball syndrome.  She will fetch until she collapses but I don't let her get to that point.  I will end the game and walk away and let her lay down and mouth the ball or lay her head on it. 

 

When asked if I can have the ball she will let me have it.  On a return if she drops the ball too far away I can tell her to pick it up and bring it closer.  A lot of the time she will put it right where I point.  Sometimes she will end the game before me and go and lay in the grass and mouth her ball.  And a funny thing is that once she picks a ball that is the only one she will play with.  There were eleven tennis balls at the dog park yesterday and she would only play with one.  If I threw another ball she would chase but not bring it back.  She would stop and sniff it then search frantically for her chosen ball, and if she couldn't find it she'd come back with a confused look on her face.  

Conker on the other hand, he fetches when he wants to, brings it back when he wants to, puts it where he wants to and will stop playing when he wants to.  He will also "hunt" Juneau (or any other dog for that matter) while they are returning the ball.  He will lay down and concentrate on the dog then rush and do his stupid Shiba growl thing at them and try to get them to drop the ball.  If they do he marches away all triumphantly.  If not, he tries again on the next return.

Juneau got fed up with this yesterday and growled, barked and attempted to correct him.  Conker took that as a personal insult against his righteous self and attacked.  And wouldn't stop.  Sometimes he is so stupid, he just doesn't know when to quit.  Juneau is two and a quarter times his size and easily put him on the ground.  Did that stop him?  No, that made it worse.  I puled Juneau off him and got her to stop.  He again kept trying to attack.  Not until after I shoved Conker away did he calm down a bit but still tried to get a bite on on Juneau.  

Funny thing was, even though he looked like he was trying real hard to rip her face off he was the one who got hurt.

I checked them both over real good and this was the only thing I could find.  And frankly, he deserved it.  He is such an ass sometimes.  I try not to let him do that stupid thing with dogs who are fetching since sometimes they can be possessive, but with Juneau he just wouldn't quit.  So he got leashed and after about ten minutes since he was still pretty riled up had to sit quietly by my side as Juneau fetched a couple more times. He didn't attempt to rush Juneau again, but I doubt he's given it up entirely.

Today Conker got:  Beef meat, liver and kidney, chicken heart, lamb scraps, turkey neck piece.