When ANIMALS Attack!!

So I have this weird thing about rain.
I love to go out on the porch when it's raining.
I find the sound of the rain sooo relaxing.
Normally, that is.

Last night during a torrential downpour,
I went out on the porch.
My mistake was taking Deegan along.
Normally, Deeg listens pretty well.
But not last night.
He went shooting off the porch
to the other side of our driveway.
I couldn't see him because of our vehicles
but I immediately heard this
horrible, frenzied snarling.

I could not IMAGINE what on earth
he was doing. I went flying off the
porch, screaming his name, running
toward our truck. I still couldn't see
either him or his combatant.
I got within about 3 feet of our truck
and suddenly THIS CAME SNARLING OUT AT ME!!!!!!!For a split second,
I thought he was a big, gray cat.
I started to bend toward him
in the dark and the rain
before I realized what I was looking at.
I think he felt trapped, with Deegan
on the far side of the vehicle and
me bending toward him on this side.
That raccoon was definitely
in fight or flight mode
and he had chosen FIGHT.

He looked WAY madder than that.
Like this mad.
Fight or flight didn't work so well for me.
I was so petrified that
I stood rooted to the spot,
screaming as loud as I could.
Incredibly, the raccoon must have
decided I was not a threat.
He lit off across the yard,
toward a drainage ditch,
with Deegan right behind him.

My feet finally unfroze and I went tearing
after them, again screaning for Deegan.
The raccoon zipped into a drainage pipe
and Deegan FINALLY stopped and looked at me.

I was still screaming at the top of my lungs.
Deegan was cowering, because I think by then
I must have looked like this.

I think that's the scaredest
I've ever been.
I shook for about an hour.
Miraculously, Deegan appeared
to be unharmed.
He was not bitten.
There was no blood.

You have to kind of wonder
what our neighbors think.
Thank goodness for noise of the rain,
because the way I was screaming,
I wouldn't have been surprised to see this.