WOODSTOCK, Ga. — A Woodstock homeowner is now recovering from injuries and rabies vaccine shots after battling to save his dog when she was attacked by a raccoon on Sunday.
“It was chaos, fight or flight mode,” homeowner Sean Yanes said.
Sean Yanes said it began when he spotted a raccoon coming out of the woods behind his home.
Suddenly, it darted at his leashed pug, Row Row, and latched its jaws on the dog’s tail.
“I started kicking it with my flipper, which wasn’t doing any good. Grabbed a big stick, hit the thing with the stick. It broke, and with what was left, I hit it again. Started punching its ribs, back of the head, everywhere I could hit it,” Sean Yanes said.
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After hearing the commotions and screams from the dog, Yanes’ wife, Ashley, ran outside to join in the vicious battle to save their dog.
“At this point, I saw the entanglement, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to get them separated.’ It’s a full-on battle. And I do have to say if I ever had a doubt in my mind that husband was the protector of our family, it’s completely shattered at this point,” Ashley Yanes said.
Sean Yanes was finally able to pull the raccoon off the dog’s tail by grabbing the back of the animal’s neck.
“I’m holding this thing, not knowing what to do with it. Someone said call animal control and keep it in a cage. I just wanted it out of my hands because it was hissing,” Sean Yanes said.
Sean Yanes dropped the raccoon, and it went back into the woods.
Sean Yanes said once his son learned everyone was OK, he took the wild brawl between his parents and the raccoon and turned it into a video game inspired Instagram hit.
“I threw in some sound effects. My dad recommended ‘Predator.’ A lot of people enjoyed that in the comments posted,” son Jack Yanes said.
The dog is healing from wounds for his tail, but is not at risk of contracting rabies since it has already, had a rabies vaccination.
Sean Yanes says he’s undergoing a grueling round of rabies vaccine shots as a precaution.
As for Row Row?
“She’s acting like nothing ever happened,” Sean Yanes said.
Raccoons normally don’t attack dogs unless provoked. The animals are considered a top carrier of rabies in wild animals.
On average, each year, around 1,000 people in Georgia receive rabies vaccination shots after potential exposure to a rabid animal.
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