Dangerous animals in your neighborhood

Plenty of scorpions, including those nasty Arizona Bark Scorpions.
Luckily they glow bright under my UV light.

I remember someone (FOAFOAF of sorts; didn’t know him personally) who liked The Biker Look, and had those “corsets” that would go around your wrist/forearm with those little metal spiky things sticking out.

Came in handy one day when a dog attacked him, he raised his arm to let the dog chomp down on leather’n’metal (huge surprise, I’d imagine!), before pulling his boot-knife and nailing the attacking dog right in the pumper from the side, and doing a classic zigzag’n’twist on the critter’s insides.

And yeah, everyone was blaming him for nailing poor Fido. “Such a good doggie, used to cuddle up with The Twins, Cody and Caleb, so there was no reason for that monster to butcher him like that!”, etc.

I suppose walking the neighborhood with a Shockwave over your shoulder might attract attention.

Snakes, spiders & bogans.

Cody & Caleb……:slight_smile:
Dakota & Shelby
And let’s throw in 5 Caitlin’s for good measure.

Breeders

30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins

After my first dog shooting, I personally informed Prescott Police that I was very desirous of walking my daily route with a Mossberg Shockwave. I asked them to supply me with a detailed map showing where, near government buildings, schools, etc. I could not do so. They begged me to not. So I never did. Five months later, my Underwood loaded 10mm Glock29 sufficed, barely.

Big black bear hanging around my house every night. Walks on the front porch, looks in the windows, sniffs around for anything edible. Climbed the apple tree 20 feet from my bedroom window a couple times but leaves it alone now that he’s eaten all the apples. Totally my fault because I got careless not securing the garbage cans and he swiped a couple meals there while making a mess and now considers my place to be a regular foraging site. He’s probably 250—300 lbs. He’s not in any way aggressive—runs when he’s seen and puts it in high gear when I trigger the shotgun over his head. I don’t want to kill him. He adds a little character to the place. I’m making sure to keep any food items inaccessible to him now and hopefully he’ll head for hibernation in a couple months.

Might as well jump in here a bit late, but what the heck.

Things I consider dangerous. No real order.

Moose. (They kill more people than the bears up here, and there are a ton of them living everywhere up here.)
Semi Feral dogs or ones that are not with the families that sort of claim them. (RichBuff covered similar situations I have witnessed or been in.)
People. This is the one that keep me moving further and further out from other people.
Brown bears, (Grizzly, Browns, BMF’ers).
Black Bears.
People. Yeah I listed it twice. For good reason.

All of these I have seen from less than a Mile from my front door.

Welcome to Alaska out the front door and on to the food chain, not always at the top though. Have a fun time. Also remember the weather half the year is also trying to kill you as well.

So yeah with police a short 20-45 minute response time, people tend to take care of things themselves. Fire and Ambulance are around 5-10 because I live closer to a hospital than a PD…

Anytime someone is the 1% of the people who are not dog bite injury casualties by dint of shooting the attacking dog, all of the people who rant about irresponsible dog owners injuring the other 99% will suddenly turn and indict the 1%.

"Terrible person let their dogs maim and kill babies, terrible!" says almost everyone.

Virtual exact same crowd: "Terrible person shot a dog that ran up to him to say hi. Terrible!"

By the way, local and national news media are complicit in perpetuating the myth that obviously dangerous canines are safe. How do they do this? By willfully only reporting a tiny portion of the hundreds of thousands of major body injuries that dogs inflict on their perfect, unarmed victims annually in the USA. This, purposely, to directly mislead the public into thinking that severe dog bite injuries almost never happen. Deaths? Local police and local coroners are under immense pressure from real estate organizations to not report dog attack deaths. A large portion of dog attack deaths are only leaked out weeks later, by victim advocates searching social media. National news media reports only a small portion of deaths by dog attack.

Official local and official nationwide attack dog injuries are extremely under-reported.

Alligators and water moccasins.

I live on a canal/lake and we get warned every once in a while, that the gators have been spotted.

Chris

Alligators and Bears
Some Snakes too.

Had cougar, bear, elk, coyote, fox, bobcats in the yard at times. Most danger came from a doe protecting her fawn stomped our dog, then chased my wife and I tossed a shovel at her to finally make her retreat.
Then there was the skunk, danm near twisted an ankle getting away from it. :confounded:

Gators; I saw one “sunning” by a local pond that was prolly around 10 feet; they’re pretty much harmless unless someone has been feeding them, then they see people as food.
They do love those little yip-yap dogs though.—-and small children—-be very careful around water in Florida.

!!

tweakers are the only dangerous thing around my house.

I’m in a very small town (<1500) and everyone either commutes somewhere else or works on the large farms.

This wasn’t a problem before lockdowns and the endless handouts that came with them. My taxes are creating terrorists in my neighborhood.

No violence yet, but some petty theft. Should be interesting to see what happens w/ extended benefits ending.

Down on a ranch we visit…
Widows, Scorpions, Brown Recluse (nasty bite), Rattlers 3 kinds - Prairie - Western Diamondback - Mojave (really nasty - one hit one of the guys on his backdoor step), Coyotes (not likely, like the music they make), Feral Hogs, Javelina (mostly not, but you don’t want to corner some by accident), Mtn. Lions (they will stalk you sometimes), Bob Cats (once again unlikely), Skunks (a smelly death or you wish you were). Bears - but they are mostly south in the Big Bend.

Pack-rats that decide to make your - whatever - the storage facility. Tore down an old house on the property. There must have been 1500lbs of old feed stuffed everywhere it could fit. The little buggers will also chew through the wiring in cars left unattended for long periods. They seen to like older vehicles.

Any of the deer like critters if you are driving a car - Pronghorns, Mule, Elk (yes, elk in Texas), the Bighorns keep to the high ground usually.
Wild dog packs are not a thing this far out. Ranchers won’t put up with that. The occasional Bull that has their dander up (feed sack is the best defense to make it back to the truck).

And roving bands of mules - the kind wearing cammo and toting 100lb. sacks of drugs. Thankfully they have moved their favorite path more west. There used to be a trodden path that looked like a superhighway. Complete with rest stops and camp sites.
Drunk drivers! There is a curve in the road south of us. Several don’t make it every year it seems.
All the Best,
Jeff

Rich, I’m going to get a little critical here. I shoot a pair of Glock 20’s with full loads in pin matches. Slow recovery times. Off duty and now retired I carry the Glock 19 with hot 9’s but have much faster follow up shots. Reading about your K9 encounters I know your not stingy with the ammo. Unless your built like a bear might consider smaller and faster. And for the rest if it’s worth shooting once then it’s worth shooting until resolved. My only animal encounter that needing shooting was an angry boar. Also near by were a couple of sows the boar probably didn’t want me close to.

So I’m going to list piggies as dangerous animals.

Old Navy saying:
Keep Firing Until: The Target Changes Shape, Catches Fire, or Disappears from Sight.

Rich, I followed your link to the dog bite site. I literally had no idea of the magnitude of the problem.

What type of camera are you using on your walks?
I’m about to start riding a bike after many (many) years and think having some documentation of events would be a good idea.

Another question, how do you carry your pistol for quick access?

All the Best,
Jeff

Luckily after I moved, none. Before I had to watch for coral snakes, jararacas, wandering spiders, yellow scorpions and sometimes confused bats entering my house by accident. Nowadays I rarely see a mosquito or fly, and the only real nuisances are junkies at the entrance of the nearby supermarket constantly begging for groceries that they exchange for crack stones at their favorite dens. I don’t go there on foot anymore because of them, these punks can get a little too desperate for their next fix and I ain’t about to be a part of that incident. I only go by car since they’re not allowed inside the parking lot.

Been chased by dogs on my bike a few times where I live now, but they were more little shits too eager to chase a vehicle’s spinning rear wheel than the genuine nasty snarling dentures with murder in their veins that our pal richbuff uses for target practice :stuck_out_tongue:

By the by, boars/pigs/hogs DEFINITELY count. Bigger, sturdier and nastier than the majority of crazy off-the-chain dogs.

Ouch! :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth: