Backyard Intruders

Trent's dog only barks when there are strangers in our backyard or when there are animals in our backyard (which happens alot since the deer all cross through our backyard from the mountain). So last night the dog was going crazy. Trent went out the back door to see what was going on and I hear him say "There is another dog out there" then he takes off so Erika and I run to the door to see what is going on just in time to see him jump up on the side of the kennel and start yelling and I hear this hissing and growling coming from somewhere in the darkness....so of course my first thought is there is some wild animal in our back yard thats going to attack my husband!

He yells at me to get back inside its a raccoon and its running toward the back door. So we hurry back inside and this dumb raccoon runs into the corner of our yard and traps itself there. Apparently raccoons are not very nice animals and most of them carry rabbies so Trent started throwing icicles from our roof at the thing and he doesn't move! Meanwhile we start looking around and notice there is a trail of blood all over the snow in our backyard. We check the dogs and they seem to be fine so we are guessing it is from the raccoon. After a number of snowballs and scaring it with the flash on the camera it finally ran back towards the other side of the yard. Trent let his dog out and it chased it down the hill but not before it tried to attack his dog...little sucker! Here are some pictures of our little critter:

Erika wanted a picture of her so here she is during all the excitement!