SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – A Bankers Hill dog owner is reporting a frightening encounter with a raccoon in which she and her dog were bitten.
Eight days later, Jessica Chranowski’s hand and the body of her six-year-old dog Sonnie still remind us of the dog walk that turned into a nightmare.
It happened two Sundays ago around 8 p.m. in front of her apartment complex in Bankers Hill.
As Chranowski accompanied three relatives to her car, Jessica found herself face to face with a large raccoon at the top of the stairs leading to the apartment complex’s patio.
“Sonnie starts pulling me, stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks up,” Chranowski said. “He arches his back, hisses at us… He went into attack mode and stormed down the stairs. I thought I heard him scream, but now that I think about it, it might have been me screaming.”
Chranowski says the raccoon rushed after her son, a Jack Russell mix.
“I kicked it. I wanted to get my dog. Then he bit my hand,” said Chranowski.
At one point, Chranowsky fell. Her 14-year-old cousin tried to hit the raccoon with a bag of clothes.
About a minute later, an altercation broke out in the parking lot. Her family members, including an elderly aunt, continued to hit the raccoon with bags of clothes, and the raccoon remained aggressive.
“It kept coming at us,” Chranowski said.
Eventually the raccoon ran away, leaving Sonnie with a body covered in scratches and bite marks. Fortunately, most of them were superficial.
Chrawnowski had to undergo painful rabies vaccinations at two hospitals. Staff at both hospitals told her they had seen three or four raccoon bites in the past month. A spokesperson for one of the hospitals, Kaiser Permanente, estimates there have been four or five cases in the past six months.
“As far as wild animals go, raccoons are probably the animals that get bitten the most,” said emergency department chief Dr. Christian LaRoe.
Experts say raccoons can become aggressive when cornered or when protecting food or babies. Animal welfare officials searched the area but found nothing.
“It was very traumatic… If you see a raccoon, you just walk in the other direction. It was horrible,” Chranowski said.
Officials with the State Fish and Wildlife Agency say they have not noticed an increase in raccoon bites.
According to the Humane Society, raccoons can be scared away with loud noises, such as an air horn.
