Help. What the heck type of animal has invaded my house? Update: We've caught something

Fun fact: raccoons can (and do) produce over 200 different sounds. We had one come up a tree to the 3rd story deck on our house once and go off bats...t crazy at our dog through the French doors. It sounded like something out of The Exorcist.

Fun fact #2: they carry rabies. We turned on the floodlights and by morning ours had decamped.

Could be a Fisher depending on where you live...member of the weasel family and very aggressive like a wolverine.

It's probably an oppossum. When threatened they hiss and make growling sounds. I heard some hissing in that odd recording of yours.

Sounds more like a fox than a raccoon imo but i don't think i've seen one set up shop near people before, and i raccoons will do that all the time.

Why wait till the second? Setup a trap and catch it. Thats all the pest guy will do anyways.

Also, dont let your dog back there. Aside from the potential danger if its a small dog, he/she may eat it and trust me, you dont wanna clean up animal guts that your pet has puked and sh** back out. I've done it and it sucks lol.

Have you tried calling a wildlife removal/critter control person?

Maybe "The Turtle Man" will come up to Baltimore for ya!

Definitely a coyote . Good news is it sounds like a young one . Adult one would probably make a snack of your dog

It's screaming and growling because your dog is walking right above it and you are annoying it by stomping on the floor.

Get out your savage 24--or do we need to go over the real man thing again.

Let me walk you through my thought process here.

1) Strange screeching sounds in the basement

2) I've seen raccoon in the bcakyard before.

3) Maybe, like, ya know, the answer might be on, like, google, or like, youtube (rising voice inflection here)?

4)

https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&client=firefox-b-1-ab&ei=MYEqXK3XPJCf_QbZpLrQCQ&q=raccoon+sounds&oq=raccoon+sounds&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39l2j0l8.5432.5432..8715...0.0..0.87.87.1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71.SUqGtuzXsvQ

5) Hmmm, sure sounds like a raccoon to me.

6) case closed.

Another poster suggested fisher cat, but that one can be ruled out at the get-go. Fisher cats make a blood-curdling howl so frightening you'd think your home is possessed.

https://roaring.earth/fisher-cat-sounds-like-being-murdered/

I'm no expert, but it sounds like a raccoon making popcorn. He should be done soon.

It is a raccoon. They can be very aggressive and attack animals much larger than themselves, even people, even if it is a healthy animal. Dont go digging around for it.

Do you have a live trap? I removed over a dozen raccoons one by one from my backyard one winter because they discovered my chickens. The only catch is how you let them out. I "released"mine only after calming them with 32 grains of lead at 1400 fps. I definitely wouldn't want to release on otherwise.

They do make live traps with a rope operated trap door on the back. This allows you to let it out from an arbitrary distance, however long of a rope you add. I would have really liked one of those when I caught a skunk on two separate occasions. Skunks are small where I live and dont eat chickens, so I felt compelled to release them without the lead to calm them down. Even with an elaborate tarp setup I still got indirectly sprayed both times.

I caught some grey foxes, too. They are docile enough I was able to release them by just opening the door while they cowered in the back and wedging it open. Then when I walked away they sprinted off. Those are native where I live and threatened by a non native red fox encroaching so I didnt want to kill them.

Tl;dr: go to hardware store, buy medium sized live trap. Get the one with the rope released rear door if you dont plan to kill it, so you can release it from a distance. Get a tuna can as bait, it catches seriously everything. After the animal is out of your porch, block all holes to prevent a repeat issue.

Beware of rabies!

Btw, that is a stupid looking basically-a-cat dog. It sounds like you have a lot of wildlife in your backyard. I wouldn't let it outside without immediate supervision or you'll be buying a new dog someday.

Thanks for the post.

I think raccoon makes the most sense but why in the hell is it making that awful sound? Or is it making that sound as we're walking on the ground and it's underneath it and it think we are invading its home.

As for the guy who is ripping my dog, she's a 15 pound french bulldog. She did actually see the raccoons about a year ago. I see the fox in the back year fairly often but luckily haven't seen them out there together. My vet says that even though my dog is small, a fox is unlikely to mess with her unless he's really really desperate.

Do you all agree? I mean if I let her out back to go the bathroom, I"m normally watching her but she goes pretty far away. Should I follow her or is she safe during the day to explore for 5 minutes or so?

Sounds like the soundtrack of a bad porn movie.

Get one of them Have a Heart traps at the hardware store, use some of Mama's suckulent fried chicken as bait, fill the trash barrel with water and drown it.

Then pre-heat oven to 450, gut the critter and fill its innards with blue crab stuffing, ladle on some brown gravy, and come back in an hour. M-m-m good!

How about finding the hole it went into and shining a light in there?

Just be glad you don't live in the Hollywood Hills. That resident mountain lion was under a porch there once.

It's definitely this:

https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/ad58641bd070c23083900f2e1528aca7?width=650

skunk or coon. Vicious little animals, but they sure are tasty.

Probably has rabies .

soak a rag in ammonia and throw it under there and animal will exit in a few hours if you give it a way out

(tie a string to it if you want to remove the rag later)