Woman and dog recovering after raccoon attack in Halifax

A big empty field nestled in a suburb isn’t typically a place where you may think a wild animal attack may happen.

But Meg Doyle of Halifax has a different perspective on late-night games of fetch with her dog, after an apparent raccoon attack.

“We were playing and the raccoons just came charging towards us, and it was traumatizing. They came straight at us,” Doyle said.

She says the incident happened around 10 p.m., and according to the Department of Natural Resources [DNR], the fact that it was dark outside may have had something to do with the encounter.

“At night, animals like raccoons are active so there’s always the chance of encountering an animal. Raccoon, coyote, bear,” Butch Galvez said, a wildlife technician with DNR.

Doyle says when one of the raccoons wouldn’t let go of her dog, she grabbed its collar.

“I assume his animal instincts took over so he wasn’t listening to verbal, so I had to go in and take his collar. When I did, he let go of the raccoon and the raccoon just grabbed for the first thing it could see, which happened to be my leg,” she said.

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Galvez says while animal attacks can happen anywhere, typically raccoons don’t charge.

“It’s not normal in the circumstance, but this time of year, raccoons are having young, there’s the possibility of habituation. Disease would be very remote. We do some surveillance for diseases like distemper, rabies, that sort of thing but that’s unlikely. We certainly will be monitoring the situation over the next few days,” he said.

Doyle was treated at the emergency room and is recovering. She hopes her story serves as a cautionary tale.

“My takeaway from this is, if you’re walking your dog at nighttime, take a big stick with you, take some sort of precautionary measure to go along with you. Even if you don’t have a dog and you’re just walking in the dark with a child, if I didn’t have my big 85-pound dog with me, it could have been such a different story.”

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