[Prototype]

I can tell you who the loser was in this battle... ME. For some reason, I had a feeling that I needed to go outside while I let my dog into the bag yard.

He sniffed around a little, then got a little jolted, ran to the other end of the yard, and started to bark. Usually, he barks at birds or cats, and they go away. He kept barking and barking.

At this point, I think to myself there's someone in my backyard, as I'm walking towards my dog to get him to shut up. I get to the corner of the house, and I hear this shuffling, as my dog is standing still in bark mode.

I look over, and I see a mound of black with a taller, skinner part. And then I see the white stripes. It could have been a prowler with a knife and I wouldn't have been that scared.

I try and get my dog out of there... I hear what I think was hissing... I still am yelling at my dog to get out of there. He takes a few steps towards me, then stops to bark. Rinse and repeat.

We get back to the house's back door, and then the smell hits. I think Pepe hit my dog with it's spray. I always thought it would smell like shat, or week old fart. It didn't, but it wasn't plesant. The best way to describe it is stale old tar with a dead carcus and a hint of tree sap.

Regardless, it must not got my dog dead on, cause one washing with normal dog shampoo, and he was fine. I even showered just to be on the safe side, cause I could still smell it linger around the house. Nothing that was noticable to my wife, but I can still smell it as I type, yet I didn't get directly hit either, that I know of.

So I tried to call the city's wild animal rescue, and the automated message said they closed at 8PM. All this went down at about 9:30PM. So I'm poop out of luck until tomorrow.

I don't want to try and trap it or anything, but my wife and I are now thinking that thing is living around or under our house, and we didn't even know it. Our dog has been sniffing around weirdly lately, and now we think we know why.

What an ordeal, and holy mother of Daniel Tkachuck what a smell. It's still outside... the smell. It's horrible.