UPDATE: Cat was 1, now 2 ... Dogs 0

How do you know it was a cat?

Then the next question... How big was that cat? 

House cat or something more like a mountain lion kind of cat? 

Bub - you can relax, my racoon has caught the perpetrator

Guitarhacker

How do you know it was a cat?

Then the next question... How big was that cat? 

House cat or something more like a mountain lion kind of cat?

It was a barn cat I think. It hissed and growled like a cat when they caught it the second time. The fence I built is horse fence, it's woven wire with a tighter pattern so the dogs can't get their noses through it. He must have slipped in under the gate to get some water while the dogs were in the house. I have a flood light on a motion sensor and all I saw when the light came on was this gray and white blur flying up the sidewalk at an alarming speed right toward me followed by the dogs. Poor critter. :(

UPDATE:

Cat 2 ... Dogs 0

That frickin' cat got inside the fence again this morning. This time all three were running so fast for the gate they crashed right in to it and knocked the latch loose and they all got out.

This time Windy got hold of the cat. It looked like she had a cat skin hat pulled over her face and she was shaking her head like Jim Carey in The Mask. I have no idea how the cat survived, but as Windy let go, it got a good swipe in. Blood everywhere again but she's ok.

They go flying around the house to the front porch and I go chasing after them, and there they all sit looking at each other all out of breath and beat up looking. I grabbed the dogs and put them back in their fenced area and put some water out for the cat and he strolled off after a while.

I have no idea how that cat survived being shaken like that. I feel bad, but he's got thousands of acres to roam freely, it's his own fault for climbing inside the dogs 40 x 60ft fenced in area. Now that he knows they can get out, I'm hoping he won't come around again.

According to a friend of mine who is an MMA instructor, and has fought in a few UFC pay per view fights, there is no animal on earth, pound for pound, tougher than a barncat. After much discussion, he chose it as his fight name. Tamdan "The Barncat" Mcrory.

Randy

Did you know you can't throw a cat straight out from you?  They become embedded under your skin.

Everyone needs the flying cat at one point or another.

I have a trap.... raccoons, possums, cats, and small dogs.... I catch um all....alive. Then.... take them for a ride to release somewhere other than here....still alive. 

I have carried the cats to the local shelter but I also know that the local shelter puts them down in 7 days if not claimed or adopted, so that is pretty much a death sentence. Who wants an old cat? 

No amount of talking to them on my part (the animals) will make them change their minds about using my yard as the litter box or a fun park filled with chickens to stare at and chase will cause them to reconsider and move on to more boring places. So it is necessary for me to move them. 

At one time, we had 24 cats living under the house across the street and under the shed in it's back yard. They liked to come over to my house, where I had a large pine straw wild area and use it as their litter box. Setting on the back deck was a horrid experience in the evenings with the stench.  We called animal control and their first visit to my property in the middle of the afternoon netted the, (literally netted) over 7 cats in 5 minutes on my property simply by setting traps (4 traps). the officer had not set the last one before the first 2 were filled.... He left with about 10 cats after 30 minutes, and in a few days time, had caught all the strays and homeless ones. 

We have survived the cats herds and the wild dog packs that used to roam this neighborhood as well. Those dogs were dangerous. 

Now days, I try to stay ahead of the curve a bit. We do get the occasional possum and coon looking for my dog's food.  I move them a few miles up the road to a wooded section more to their liking. 

Yeah, we get people doing that here. Last time they did it, I came home to two kittens in a pretty little box siting inside my garage door. One was dead and the other one was still barely breathing laying on top of the dead one.

Gave her some water, nursed her back to health and gave her to my in-laws. Turned out to be a nice cat. Got her fixed and got her all her shots.

Good luck with all of that, Bub.  No more blood on those handles, OK?  

I looked at those gloves in a few stores but nobody had any that fit me. I did have a pair of those yellow ones with the strips of silicon goo on them. They work for a while but once they got some dirt on them they lose their grip.

@Old55: But the blood builds character. I didn't even tell you about the fingernail incident. I shudder when I think about it still. Let's just say, there's no safety on those to stop the handles from slapping together. Doh!

Bub

craigb

Bub

I have my entire acreage fenced in. 5 acres, by hand, just me, a manual post hole digger and a steel fence post driver. 

The rest of the story is interesting, but just reading that first sentence got me tired and I needed a nap!

When we bought this land, I had to have a perk test done. What you do is, you dig a post hole 4 feet deep. Then the county planner comes out, dumps a couple of 5 gallon buckets of water in it, and times how long it takes for the water to seep in to the ground. He also examines the soil to see how high the water table is and how much clay/rock/soil etc is there.

I never dug a fence post hole before. I was cursin' and swearin' out there for 45 minutes digging the first one. I had to dig 5 in various spots all over the property in a #5 domino pattern if you can picture that. I felt like I was gonna die.

Fast forward a year, 40 holes later, I could dig one in less than 3 minutes right through hard packed clay and rocks. I have a post hole digger that has thick oak handles. There's blood stains all over it because I can't wear gloves when I do it, they slip too much.



What's worse, IMO, is driving steel posts with a post driver. It hurts your wrists and the sound goes right through you and hurts your ears. It slides over top the steel post and you just slam it down on it while trying to keep the post level. It's a challenge for the first 50 or so, then you get the hang of it like anything else.


Fast forward again 12 years later and being severely out of shape, I'm a little worried. I have to fix two porches on my house before I put it on the market for sale and I have to dig 15 post holes. grrr.

Here in NC Tejas everyone has "privacy fences" that we share with our neigbors.  these privacy fences are 99% 8' wooden slat fences with no space between them (to create a false sense of privacy) and every 9' they're bound to a wooden post stuck (supposedly) 3-4' into the ground.  they're (99%) done by the contractors who build the houses, so they're almost always done exactly the same.
 
every year part of the fence needs repair.  every couple of years the posts rot at the ground line and break (unless they're done correctly, which they never are).  so the first few couple of years I had to repair my fence, I dug the entire concrete base out of the ground and replaced the wooden post, filled the dirt back in and used cardboard tubes to pour the concrete base back in.  I dug those out with a shovel and post hole diggers.  man that was brutal.
 
then, as my pea brain evolved, I started digging NEW holes between the wooden posts and put steel fence posts in.  I left the wooden posts where they were and did not dig up the concrete anchor from the clay soil.  that way the wooden post could still be used to join the 2 slat panels, but the new steel posts I put in the ground on either side of the old wooden posts could now hold the fence in place.  not nearly as much digging, but still using the post hold diggers until my back and arms looked like Popeye on spinach.
 
fast forward to a couple of years ago when I decided that this post hole digging was "for the young and stupid."  Now when I need a post hold dug, I rent one of these puppies.
 

 
these things are SWEET!  all that work and sweat and blood and flesh tearing was OVER!  it takes about 10 minutes to dig a post hole about 4' deep with one of these where it was taking an hour for each one (and that's after I got good at it!) doing it the hard way!
and to rent them it's like $25/hour.  usually 1 hour rental is all I need to dig 2-4 holes and still have time to drive to and from Lowes with it!

yeah, it does tend to muck up in the clay and texas is nothing but clay and rocks.  but it's still much easier for me for 2-3 holes than doing it by hand.  I don't have teenagers at home any more for manual labor! 
 
and there's not enough becan in the world to pay me to dig post holes by hand for 10 acres!  or even 1! lol!   I'm just not in the physical shape to be able to do that any more!

Beagle

and there's not enough becan in the world to pay me to dig post holes by hand for 10 acres!  or even 1! lol!   I'm just not in the physical shape to be able to do that any more!

It does get easier the more you do it. :) I learned to use my weight to my advantage. Most people don't have that advantage, or disadvantage, however you want to look at it. :( Toward the end, I got to the point to where I could slam that thing in to the ground without my hands on the handle when it hit and dig a 4 foot deep hole in less than 5 minutes. You have to go deep like that here in Iowa because the ground freezes and pushes the concrete and/or post up out of the ground. The other thing I did too was flare the hole out at the bottom just in case of a bad freeze. It makes the concrete spread out more at the bottom and can't be pushed up.

I think it's fun, especially when I started getting used to it. There's something very satisfying about seeing a 700ft long fence that's straight as an arrow that you did by hand, all by yourself. It gives you power as well. You get to say, "Don't complain to me that I don't do anything, have you looked outside lately?" ;)