animals

While hunting with her dad yesterday, Novalee Pocock, 14, from Bergen, had a close encounter of the raccoon kind. While in a wooded area, a raccoon came up to her and jumped in her lap. 

According to her mother, the raccoon cuddled right up to her to stay warm.

"She will never forget this encounter with the wildlife while hunting for deer with her dad," she said.

Submitted photo and information.

Jason Smith shared this photo of a male cardinal feeding a female cardinal in the backyard of his Batavia home.

A caller reports there's an injured beagle in the parking lot in front of the Target store on Veterans Memorial Drive in Batavia. An animal control officer is dispatched. The caller is waiting with the dog until the officer arrives.

UPDATE 1:02 p.m.: The injured critter is not a beagle, it's a SEAGULL, as in "Jonathan Livingston Seagull." The Peanuts kind of pooch is what the dispatcher thought he heard, but an officer on the scene corrected the information.

An officer has been dispatched to the Dollar Tree on East Main Street, Batavia, to investigate a report of a dog locked in a black Ford Escape.

"The window is only cracked a little bit," the officer is informed.

Angela Schlaggel spotted this white pigeon in the parking lot of The Salvation Army in Batavia and noticed it was wearing a bracelet. 

The pigeon had been at the location for the last two hours at the time Schlaggel sent us the picture this morning.

"It has a bracelet and isn't bothered by my presence at all so I think it may be someone's escaped pet," she said. 

A caller reports a dog is locked inside a black GMC pickup truck at Dave's Ice Cream on West Main Street Road, Batavia. An officer is responding.

It is about 82 degrees outside.

Weather Outlook (By Billie) 1:29 p.m.:

According to the National Weather Service in Buffalo, starting tomorrow through Friday there is a Hazardous Weather Outlook in place due to an expected prolonged period of heat and humidity that will build across portions of Western New York. It is expected to get between 95 and 100 degrees during those afternoons.

The temperature inside a vehicle can soar quickly on a hot day. For example, if it's 95 degrees outside, say this coming Wednesday, the air termperature inside a vehicle can reach 114 degrees Fahrenheit in 10 minutes flat; if it's 100 degrees outside, the inside temp goes up to 119.

Yesterday evening, Trumbull Parkway resident Ray Tortorice spotted a family of skunks crossing his yard. When they saw him, the family retreated. About 20 minutes later, they came back, emerging from his neighbor's yard on East Avenue, passing through Tortorice's yard and flower bed and east to North Spruce Street, which he captured on video.

"I guess they were on some kind of night 'Recon' mission," Tortorice said.

Volunteers from the Oakfield Fire Department along with Animal Control Officer Ann Marie Brade and Deputy Kevin McCarthy -- working his second duck rescue detail in as many days -- managed to save a badling of ducks from the stormwater system this morning.

Photos submitted by Staci Finn.

A dog has reportedly been locked in a blue Chevy Equinox for more than 30 minutes in the parking lot behind Settler's Restaurant.

Batavia PD is dispatched.

James Elmore shared this photo from Thursday morning of an oriole eating some jelly in his backyard.

Interview with Tori Ganino, dog trainer, owner of Calling All Dogs in Batavia.

Judy Schildwaster submitted this photo of a juvenile bald eagle taken yesterday morning off of Route 33 in Stafford.

Josh Hawkins shared these photos he took earlier this week of eagles in Elba.

He wrote:

For three days in a row, multiple bald eagles fed on a roadkill deer in a field on Route 262 in Elba. These were some of the better images I was able to capture with my 300mm zoom lens. The pair in the photos are mature birds because of their bright white head and tail, but I did also observe a juvenile eagle (some white present on the head and tail, but not much) at one point and was unable to capture a photo. They likely came from Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, although I've heard that there is a nest on or near Norton Road in Elba.

Former customers of the Dog & Cat Surgery & Wellness Clinic have been contacting The Batavian expressing concern about the apparently sudden closure of the company's office in the Harvester Center.

Clients have said the closure struck them as unexpected and their biggest concern has been retrieving medical records for their pets.

Dr. Matthew T. Will, in Alden, has made arrangements, he said, to take over the practice and is encouraging clients to contact him either to transfer care for their pets to his office or to obtain medical records.

He provided the following statement:

Dr. Raymond Long, DVM, retired this past Monday. This is certainly a milestone for Dr. Long but has presented some immediate challenges for his clients and patients. In the past 24 hours, I have had discussions with Dr. Long, and have made arrangements, with his permission, to provide for patient care.

Starting yesterday, Dr. Mathew Will, DVM at Country Village Pet Care Hospital located at 13269 Broadway St., Alden, will handle Dr. Long's retirement transition for all current patients. My hospital is a full-service hospital. Our phone number is 716-937-4588. Our website is www.aldenvet.com.

I know that with this change that some clients may have some concerns. I want to assure everyone that my main objective is to promote the continuity of care of every patient and make this transition as seamless as possible.

Current clients that have immediate sickness should feel free to call my office right away. Sick patients will receive any priority. Patients with chronic medical conditions or on daily medications will receive expedited priority and be accommodated.

Any clients needing prescription refills, appointments, needing medical record information or having any patient questions can speak to our medical team. We are here to help every pet parent and their pets.

So dig this, Duster the cat, who has been on the lam since Thanksgiving night, doing God knows what, has been found thanks to a high-profile tipster, the intrepid Genesee County Manager Jay Gsell.

Duster's momma, Melissa Barone, who lives on Tracy Avenue in the city, gives credit where credit is due. But she also thanked The Batavian for the APB published Nov. 29th.

She enlisted not only our readers' help but her momma's, too, who Barone says has been "scouring" the area near Barone's home on a daily basis. This kind of resolute undauntedness is the very essence of intrepidity.

So Barone's momma, and Gsell, renowned for his institutional knowledge of the arcane bowels of county government and his pet- and people-friendly bonhomie, were in cahoots, in a manner of speaking, on the recapture of the cat.

By the way, it didn't wander very far from home sweet home, in fact, Duster was just around the kitty-corner.

Word on the street was that Duster the defector liked to hang around in the vicinity of Batavia Middle School, which is inarguably heavily populated by pals of pets.

Sure eough, Barone's momma was heading to her daughter's for dinner yesterday (Jan. 16) and she spotted a familiar-looking feline following a young miss walking in the area of the school.

"She stopped and sure enough it was Duster," Barone wrote The Batavian in an email. "He came right up to my mom purring away."

His purr reportedly sounds like the world's most expensive car -- that would be the Swedish-made Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita ($4.8M), owned by the likes of Jay Leno and Floyd Mayweather. Not too shabby for a domestic tabby-ish cat with a white bib and front-paw gloves.

Duster prolly figures if he can't have celebrity-caliber fun money, he can at least sound like millions of bucks. He can also check off 15 minutes of fame -- à la that prescient Andy Warhol -- from his bucket list.

Joshua Finn says he always wanted a blond female running partner and he wound up with Charlotte, a young golden retriever full of energy.

They run together a lot, as much as six miles on a weekend run.

"If she sees me grab my headphones and leash, she goes nuts," Finn said.

On one of his runs, Finn, who also runs in 5Ks, said he thought, "wouldn't it be cool to run in a 5K with dogs."

He shared his idea with Adrienne Penders and she, well, ran with it.

Penders, owner of Matted Mutts and involved with rescues and Volunteers for Animals for more than 15 years, has spent dozens of hours and thousands of dollars of her own money to bring together the "Mutt Strut," a 5K walk in the Genesee County Park & Forest at 9 a.m. on Sunday, April 19. (She also was helped by her boyfriend Jonathan Wright, who helped promotional material, including building the promotional website).

To bring the event together, there was insurance to secure, waivers to sign, release forms, and other paperwork and numerous meetings involved in getting approval from county officials.

All in the name of creating a family-friendly, and dog-friendly event where people can enjoy a relaxing walk in one of Genesee County's most scenic areas.

Since it's the first-ever large-scale dog walk/run event in the park, park officials wanted to keep it manageable so it's limited to 100 participants.

"We want it to be a success not only for the dogs but for the park so we can keep doing it year after year after year," Penders said.

To help with the success, dog trainer Tori Ganino, owner of Calling All Dogs, will be on hand to help spot dogs that might be not be suitable for the event. The event is for dogs who are comfortable around other dogs and children.

"Obviously, everybody thinks their dog is wonderful but sometimes you get into a close encounter with 50 dogs and 100 kids running around dogs, some dogs might act a little differently, so she’s there basically to either explain to somebody how to control their dog or advise that the dog shouldn't attend the event because it’s not going to be safe," Penders said.

Dogs and their handlers can sign up at mattedmutts.com/muttstrut/. Registration is $30 per person or $80 for a family of four. All proceeds benefit Volunteers for Animals.

The canines get a doggie gift bag and there will be food for participants afterward.

Photo: Joshua Finn, Charlotte, Adrienne Penders, and Pablo.

If you like our community coverage and want more of it, become a patron. Click the supporter button below.

Who knows what Stone has been up to for the past five weeks or so (we reported him missing Sept. 30) but over the weekend Stone returned home on his own. Owner Kathleen Dixson said he sure was tired when he got home but was happy to be back where he belongs.

There's been enough talk about the deer problem in Batavia, Councilman John Canale said during Tuesday's Batavia City Council meeting after a local resident said he's been chased by a buck in his own yard during public comments.

"Forming another committee isn't going to do anything," Canale said. "We've done this before. We form a committee and the committee studies the issue and makes a recommendation and then there's no action."

It's time for action, he said.

Councilman Paul Viele's suggestion: A controlled kill. It's time, he said, to start thinning the herds that encroach on the city.

Russell Nephew, a Bank Street resident, said there's a large herd that hangs out at that end of town, in the farm fields between Genesee Community College and the city line and enter on residential property, destroying landscaping and leaving their droppings in local yards, and perhaps carrying tics that are a danger to dogs and humans.

"Those things are disheartening and I’ve put up with them but now I’ve got chased through my backyard by a deer," Nephew said. "It reared up and I got away from it luckily. A couple of days later, my 70-year-old neighbor got ran into her apartment from a parking lot. At any one time, there can be from six to 10 deer that run through there."

A resident from Avon spoke up during the council discussion and said that in Avon they've instituted a bait-and-shoot program that has rules, is regulated, and is helping reduce the herd size.

Council President Eugene Jankowski pointed out that any deer killed would have the meat from the animal donated to a food pantry in the region to help feed low-income residents.

He also blamed the growing herd sizes on fewer hunters in New York. He said more people are giving up hunting as a protest against New York's increasingly restrictive gun laws.

While council members seemed to favor some culling effort, no specific plan was approved at Tuesday's meeting.

I spotted this caterpillar inching over the asphalt of our driveway so I grabbed my macro lens to try and make a picture of him (or her).

Stone isn't at home where he belongs and his owner, Kathleen, is worried about his whereabouts.

Stone's home is on Elmwood Avenue, by Kibbe Park. He's been missing since Sunday afternoon.

The feline is all gray, with green eyes, very friendly, and he loves to hide and play. He's 4 years old but is not an outdoor cat.

If anyone has seen him or has any information about him, please contact Kathleen at (585) 409-8099.