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by Scottie Westfall

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The tanuki, Marderhund, or raccoon dog

February 24, 2009 by SWestfall3

raccoon-dogs1

Raccoon dogs are strange dogs. When I say raccoon dogs, I’m not talking about coonhounds. I’m not talking about “Ol’ Blue.”

I am talking about an unsual canid that was originally found only in Asia, but  the Soviets introduced them to Latvia after World War II. Their range expaneded rapidly to encompass a wide range of Europe.

This species is one of those primitive dogs, like the gray fox. And like the gray fox, the raccoon dog can climb trees. However,  it is not as good at it as the gray fox is.

These dogs go into a kind of hibernation during the coldest months of the winter. They go torpid during this time period, just like the true raccoon.

In parts of Europe, especially Germany, both introduced raccoons and introduced raccoon dogs live in the same forests. But they are not that closely related.

If you would like to see one bayed by a Finnish hound, check out the video below:

These animals are a bit of pest in parts of their range. They kill lots of small animals and destroy ground bird’s nests.

Raccoon dogs can be kept as pets in some European countries. However, these are fundamentally wild animals, and they don’t have all the nice traits that make domestic animals so easily to deal with.

The raccoon dog is a strange animal. We don’t have them in North America, so when people see pictures of them, they think they are large raccoons. Or if they hear the term “raccoon dog,” they think of Where the Red Fern Grows. It’s really just another species of wild dog, albeit a rather strange one.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged introduced species, Marderhund, raccoon dog, tanuki, wild dogs | 15 Comments

15 Responses

  1. on February 24, 2009 at 1:35 am ms ann thrope

    Do you remember last year when HSUS got it’s knickers all in a twist about Raccoon Dog fur being imported to the US and being mislabeled as something else? And pet owners got their underwear all balled up because HSUS didn’t really explain what a Raccoon Dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) is versus Canis familiaris?
    Sigh, the introduction of the Raccoon Dog to Latvia is another case of human intervention motivated by $$$ that’s gone awry.


    • on February 24, 2009 at 1:39 am retrieverman

      I don’t know how much money had to do with the Commies, because they were more interested in controlling all forces of nature to make a workers paradise. That’s why they built such crappy dams and tried to grow wheat in the Arctic.


  2. on February 24, 2009 at 2:26 am ms ann thrope

    Not knowing al ot about the motives of the Commie heirarchy, I was thinking more of failed species importations in general like nutria to Louisiana, bullfrogs to the southwestern US, American mink to Europe etc, where the motives were inspired by $$$ and the result has been not good for the native wildlife. These days, I just subscribe greed as the motive operandus to everybody!


  3. on February 24, 2009 at 2:33 am Christopher

    That is one of the cutest faces ever. I’ve never seen one of these things in person, but I did have a whole gang of pet Raccoons one summer at Jazz camp up on the CU Boulder campus.

    Whoever had lived in the half-underground room I stayed in had obviously fed the Raccoons out the ground level window. So they’d come and bang on the window waiting for their hand outs. Which, being in socialist Boulder, I had to oblige with free food.

    Then back home a small family moved in to the neighborhood and they’d raid our trash cans on trash night. Funny thing is, if we gave them hot dogs, they’d leave the trash alone. The Mafia Raccoons we called them. Cute as hell, but they went away when we cut down the tree next to where we kept the trash cans.

    Despite being so cute though, I always got the impression that I’d never want to piss one off.


    • on February 24, 2009 at 3:14 am retrieverman

      Have you ever been around coonhounds? These dogs are like savants for chasing raccoons. They seem to know how to track and tree raccoons, and maybe fight one, but that’s about it. And the ones that have fought raccoons are battle scarred. One trick that raccoons often try is to run the dog into the river. Then take the dog out into the deep water, then double back, drag the dog under, and drown it. If you have hands you are much more maneuverable in the water than something with paws. Also, it’s not uncommon for a dog that has been fighting raccoons to get paralyzed. There is this condition, some think it’s an autoimmune syndrome, that everyone calls coonhound paralysis.

      And raccoons are a bit like small grizzly bears when roused. The Germans call them Waschbaer for a reason. Germany has a ton of raccoons. The Nazis imported them. The Nazis also tried to breed a strain of cow that looked like the Ancient European aurochs (wild cow) and tried to breed a horse that looked like the wild horses of Europe that have since gone extinct.

      There are lots of weird animals in Europe. You can find muntjac in England, genets in Spain, and wallabies in Scotland. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRVqfgIXFYQ

      The Soviets and the English introduced American mink, which are true mink, to their respective countries, and they overran the polecat species they call a “European mink.”

      We turned loose the red fox here, and it’s much more common than the gray, except in West Virginia. Just wait until we get the Burmese pythons. They will take over most of the subtropical South.

      Raccoon dogs are something else. For a hoot, you should go to the actual youtube video of the Finnish hound baying the Raccoon dog and look at the number of people who say “Damn, that’s a big raccoon,” or “Geesh, I didn’t know they had raccoons in Europe.”


  4. on February 24, 2009 at 6:02 am ramin

    We’ve got lots of raccoon dogs around our area. They are very much a pest that local hunters hunt actively to help the waterfowl populations thrive (so that we’d have something decent to hunt).

    Our boys haven’t seen any raccoon dogs yet, but they have found body parts in the surrounding forests. For some reason a proud young golden retriever with the skull and partial spine of a raccoon dog running towards you isn’t the most pleasant sight.


    • on February 24, 2009 at 1:51 pm retrieverman

      I’m glad we don’t have them here. We do have the gray fox, but a gray fox moves just like a cat. And if a dog chases one it will take to the trees just as easily.

      Are there bounties on raccoon dogs?


  5. on February 25, 2009 at 5:37 am ramin

    AFAIK there are no bounties offered. It’s just a part of game control that Finnish hunters do. There are some raffles in which all hunters that have participated in the campaigns to limit the number of small predators can participate.


    • on February 25, 2009 at 1:59 pm retrieverman

      Even for native predators, like coyotes, we have coyote killing contests– who can kill the most, the biggest, etc. And a lot of jurisdictions have coyote bounties.


  6. on March 26, 2009 at 1:19 am Michele

    Racoon dogs are beautiful animals which are captured and kept in tiny cages till horrible people in China skin them alive for fur coats. I sincerely believe these such people should go through the same treatment till all these animals are left alone and safe.


    • on March 26, 2009 at 1:57 am retrieverman

      Yes, I’ve seen the video of one being skinned alive on youtube. Quite disgusting.


  7. on January 29, 2010 at 9:34 pm Ga

    I’m confused by your post. Dogs (domestic pets) were once wild too. Raccoon dogs are a part of the dog family and do not deserve a life in a wire cage only to have their heads slammed on concrete and then skinned alive for fashion. People can be so ignorant and selfish it makes me sick. No animal is a pest. Though if you consider a pest a population that is out of control and using up all the resources it inhabits then HUMANS are the only pests on this planet. We are grossly overpopulated and will get a big smack in the face when we pollute all the waterways and cause the extinction of our kind.


    • on January 29, 2010 at 11:22 pm retrieverman

      In Scandinavia and Eastern Europe they are a threat to native species.

      And if native species are threatened, the invasive species must be destroyed.

      If we just let invasive species go and go, then we’ll lose our biodiversity. There are only a few species that can live in such varied spaces.

      If we just let them go, then we’d just have a few species throughout the world.


  8. on May 13, 2012 at 6:04 pm Meryl Squires

    This morning i spotted a raccoon dog. What is interesting is, i live in the unites states an hour northwest of chicago. I spotted it on my farm. It came out of the prairie grass onto to limestone road just 30 feet away from me and paused for some time when it saw me so i got a very good look at it. At first i thought it was a raccoon but it was a bit larger and brown then when it turned and ran back into the grass i saw its tail which was shorter than a raccoon and no rings. I had never seen an animal like this and began researching. It is identical to pictures of raccoon dogs. Now the big question, where did it come from? My farm is a horse farm but i hold part of it as a conservation piece with bird sanctuary and wildlife habitat. I can only assume someone smuggled it into the states. This will be very interesting.


    • on May 13, 2012 at 7:15 pm retrieverman

      Very weird!

      I don’t know of any in the United States.

      Maybe an escaped pet?



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