Ways to screw with your local police

A few weeks ago I heard the dogs barking in the back yard around 5:45pm and opened the window to yell at them.  When I opened the window I heard a small child yelling.  We have 1 acre of land that backs up to a service road leading to a gravel pit and conservation land.  Kids play out there all the time and teens go out there to race dirt bikes and party.  But this clearly was 1 elementary school age child in distress.  Even Paul agreed that it sounded suspicious so we decided to call 911 and let them come investigate. 

So while I'm on the phone with the 911 dispatcher Paul goes through our backyard, climbs the fence, and heads into the woods.  Keep in mind it is now pitch black in Mass at 4:30pm so 5:45pm is like the dead of night and all Paul can find is a pen sized flashlight. 

The dispatcher asks me if I can still hear the child and I say yes and she tells me to call to him so I am standing in our backyard yelling, "Are you okay?  Do you need help?"  And telling her there is no response.  And of course I wandered too far into our yard and our motion sensor light goes off and now I can't see anything and I'm too far away to trigger the motion sensor (and anyone who knows me knows that I hate the dark so being outside in the dark is like my worst nightmare). 

I'm headed towards the side of our house, I can't see Paul's flashlight anymore (no wonder since it only spread light for a distance of 1.5 feet), and 2 cops walk around the side of our house.  I explain what we heard, throw our  neighbors under the bus (they have an autistic son who wanders), and tell them my husband is out back on the road.  They say they know that officers have met him on the service road. 

This service road has a gate across the front and 4 cop cars full of cops are parked in front of the gate because they don't have a key to the gate.  Keep in mind they think a small child is in distress and they could easily walk down the service road or break the gate down. 

As I'm talking to the cops I see Paul walking backs through our yard (why he didn't just go up the service road to the main road which would've been quicker and not required him to walk through the woods with a pen light and climb a fence is beyond me) and we finally go back into the house secure in the knowledge that the cops have things under control. 

We don't hear anything on the news about a missing child and the cops don't come back so we feel like everything is okay. 

So fast foward to this past week and Paul is telling someone at work about what had happened.  The guy tells Paul that his first thought would've been that its a fisher cat.  What the hell is a fisher cat?  Keep in mind that we are from the south...our wild animal knowledge consists of alligators, snakes, and spiders. 

This apparently is a fisher cat:
Are you friggin kidding me????  This thing looks like it will tear your ass up!

This is what may be living in my backyard somewhere?????  No.

And all websites indicate that this may ATTACK and KILL small dogs and cats because it is a predatory, territorial animal.  Great something else to worry about!


It looks like a small bear!  I would turn and run the other way if I saw this in our yard.  Okay, so I wouldn't run because I'm lazy, but I would walk very fast.

If you want to hear what we heard click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLU_a-gDF9M.  Some people said that this was a red fox. 

Regardless we, okay I, called 911 and the entire police department came out to search FOR A WILD ANIMAL!  It's okay.  We don't live in a high crime area so they probably weren't doing too much anyways.