ATLANTA (ANF/Gray News) — A Georgia family is still in shock after a raccoon attacked their dog in their backyard, and the whole thing was caught on camera.
Sean Yanes said he took his dog, Ro Ro, outside on Sunday evening and spotted the raccoon, initially thinking nothing of it.
“So, I start filming it,” he said. “Oh, a raccoon … [to] show the neighbor’s kids.”
Seconds later, the raccoon lunged at Ro Ro, clinging to her tail. Yanes said the leash slipped from his hand, and the raccoon dragged Ro Ro across the yard. Wearing house slippers, Yanes fell while trying to fight the animal off.
“Kick, slip, I roll down there … get a stick, come back and start smacking it with the stick,” he said. “I broke the stick across its back.”
His wife then ran outside to help.
“I didn’t know what it was at the time,” Ashley Yanes said. “I just knew we had to get them apart from each other.”
Sean Yanes managed to get the raccoon in a headlock until it released Ro Ro’s tail.
“Once we got to flat ground, then it was on,” he said. “Then I wasn’t falling anymore and I wore it out.”
Both Ro Ro and her owners are now OK after visits to a vet and a doctor.
Looking back, the family said it could have been far worse.
“We’re constantly looking to see if we see it [the raccoon] … our neighbor has a 1-and-a-half-year-old,” Yanes said. “Again, the situation could have been so much worse than it was.”
The family is working with wildlife experts to try to capture the raccoon.
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