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Raccoon dog

 

 

Late autumn with intermediate snow cover, and we can see their dense, long-haired winter fur on raccoon dogs. Body weight is twice that of summer – while fully grown animals weighed about six kilos in summer then in late autumn it is nearly thirteen kilos, mainly due to the stored fat. The doubled weight makes the raccoon dogs clumsy and their movements a little laughable. On roadsides, in the car headlights we see them less often than one and a half months ago looking for easy prey. There are correspondingly fewer raccoon dog corpses too on the roads. The animals keep near the burrows. Since early October the adults are again in pairs, and spend winter together in their established territories.

 

When snow falls again the raccoon dog pair sleeps on for several days before they come outside to check the surroundings and leave tracks. Their winter sleep is very patchy.

 

We don’t know the number of raccoon dogs in Estonia and the expression „if you see one raccoon dog there must be at least ten of them nearby“ tells the truth about raccoon dogs with their hidden and nocturnal way of life.