Oh, that's not my neighbor's dog...

Some of our middle school kids came tearing into town on their bicycles claiming that they had seen a cougar sleeping in an abandoned granary about a mile out of town. Our deputy convinced them that they had only seen a bobcat. And then Mr. Cougar showed up on a surveillance camera mounted on an irrigation system. He was calmly lapping at a puddle of water in the moonlight. . --s6

Perks said:

Yesterday, no lie, a raccoon attacked my car. I was headed to the bus stop in the afternoon to pick up my daughter and I saw an animal nosing around ahead on the road. My car startled it, but (by this time I could see that it was a raccoon) it only crept around a stump. I mean, it was all hunkered down like it thought it was hiding, but it was still in plain view.

So I drove up beside it to tell it that it was dumb, but when I stopped and rolled down the window, the little bastard lunged, open-mouthed, little boxing paws up, right at my car!

Scared the crap out of me.

I am a wuss.

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This sounds like a scene out of a Jim Carrey movie.

We get coyotes pretty much everywhere in CA (ours are scruffier looking than the one in the OP's picture). They often come into very urban neighborhoods. I've certainly seen them out along the river here in Sacramento, and now and again one wanders into our neighborhood and lost cat signs start popping up all over (an excellent reason to keep cats inside). We have racoons and tons of skunks too.

We're not too far from the American River Parkway, so there are occasional deer, and even mountain lion sightings. Wild Turkeys like to roam around in the fall too. I saw a bunch of them hanging out at a park and ride a while back, trying to jimmy the locks on some of the cars (I'm only partially kidding; they were pecking at door handles). We had a snowy egret rookery tree in our neighborhood for a few years, but the new owners of the house have rigged up an ultrasonic speaker that seems to be keeping them away.

It's neat having suburban wildlife, but there are some difficulties that arise sometimes. My dog stuck her head down a storm drain one day, and there was a skunk sleeping down there. He was too drowsy to spray, thankfully. Could have been horrible.

I grew up in rural Oklahoma. We had packs of coyotes that howled at night. We normally always had a couple of GSDs guarding the house. The coyotes would come up into our backyard (which was only separated from the pasture with a pipe fence). We had huge rafters of wild turkeys that would get pretty close to the house, crossing the road in front of us to get from one wheat field to the next. And we had nice herds of deer. And then there were the raccoons, skunks, opossums, and armadillos.

I hadn't seen much of it being in Houston for so many years, but we've recently moved to a new development that backs to farmland, and we hear the coyotes again at night. My dog stands and stares at the fence as they run past. I can't tell if she's scared or just curious. And one night, a skunk got into our fenced yard... I dread the day the dog gets sprayed... I should stock up on the tomato juice and vinegar just in case.