It was a mid afternoon in early October. Weather was typical for the mountains of Colorado for this time of year. Old Man Winter had given us a sneak preview of things to come as there were a few inches of new snow on the ground.

I was just starting to think about getting the afternoon chores started as there were a few terriers that always seem to think they deserve dinner early. It was about that time that a friend of mine and breeder of Jack Russell Terriers from Grand Junction, CO called me with a sense of urgency in her voice.

She began to tell me that a young man who had purchased a pup from her the year before called her in a panic saying that his terrier was stuck in a rock crevice with a large raccoon that was killing his terrier and he had no way to reach them to save his dog. She said he was nearly in tears and in a state of panic. He called all the local authorities and none of them said they could help him. In desperation he called the breeder, my friend who was 4 hours away. She could not help from where she was and so she called me and explained the circumstances.

I called him right away and he gave me directions to where he and the terrier were located. Fortunately, it was only about a 15 minute drive. When I arrived close to the site, he met me on the roadway and we ran up the hill for about 5 minutes. At 8,500 feet this was a bit of a chore in itself!

When we got to the location, I could hear the terrier screaming as evidently the raccoon had managed to get hold of the terrier and was not letting go. The place the terrier had managed to get himself into was a large crack in a boulder about the size of most people’s living room.

The crack ran about 8 feet straight back and then up about 4 feet in kind of a chimney shape to a ledge. With a flashlight, I could just make out the animals and somehow the raccoon and terrier had managed to change places as the raccoon was blocking the escape route and had the terrier pinned up in the top of the crevice.

I could not reach the raccoon with a stick or branch and had no chance of moving a boulder that large. The terriers owner was really beginning to loose composure at this point as I am sure he thought the terrier was going to die right in front of him. I told him to stay put and keep talking to his terrier. I ran down to my truck and got one of my terriers, Cody, who is pretty hard on quarry.

Cody is pretty good at negotiating these kinds of things so I ran back up the hill with him and showed him the entrance location. Hearing the distress cries of the other terrier, he was very anxious to get to work. He squirmed his way into the crack and then up the chimney to the back side of the raccoon. Once he arrived there, it was the raccoon that let out a scream and the other terrier stopped.

Cody had the raccoon by the butt and was hauling him down the crack in the rock. Once he pulled the coon to level ground and was coming back out the entrance, the trapped terrier was not going to let this raccoon go unpunished for all the abuse he had taken over the past few hours so he managed to get his way back down the tight crack in the boulder and get outside to where Cody had the raccoon dispatched.

The trapped terrier who’s name was Jack unleashed his frustration on this raccoon for a few moments until his owner scooped him up. There were no apparent serious injuries, just lots of puncture wounds. Jacks owner thanked me about a hundred times as he ran carrying Jack down the hill and then rushed to the Vet’s office to get him cleaned up.

He called me that evening to thank me again and to tell me that Jack only needed a few stitches and that cosmetic surgery was not going to be necessary. I was glad to hear that and recommended that he keep Jack on a lead when he went for walks in that area or he might need to call me again. It was a happy ending and I was glad to have been able to help him.