We have a number of regular and frequent visitors to our backyard compost bins. Twice weekly my husband empties the kitchen compost pail where I deposit all manner of vegetable scraps and fruit skins, coffee grounds and tea bags, eggshells and leftover stale bread, into the backyard compost bins. We're able to keep those bins busy turning that kitchen waste into compostable material once it has sufficiently aged and decomposed, to spread over the gardens to enrich them.

Local raccoons love the freshly-dumped leavings. We long ago learned that it was fruitless to try to prevent them from accessing those kitchen scraps, since they love them enough to go to extraordinary means to access them. And really, why would we want to deny these wild animals, clever and industrious, their treats? So we leave the compost bin lids awry to enable them to toss them aside and enter the bins at their leisure. And they do.

They would, in their efforts to gain entry to the bins, effectively destroy lids and locks, in their fervour. So we save our bins from harm and at the same time, allow those adorable animals to take what they want. And they seldom leave any kind of a mess to be cleaned up afterward, so it's no bother whatever.

Except for the fact that our two little dogs, sensing, smelling, hearing and sometimes seeing the raccoons when we take them out to the backyard, react aggressively to their presence. And since no dog would ever win a conflict with a raccoon, particularly a mature raccoon in conflict with a belligerent but very small dog we do our utmost to prevent any situation where they could confront each other. If Jackie and Jillie begin to react we just order them back into the house.

Usually the raccoons venture out at night, but there are occasions that arise when a juvenile raccoon throws all caution to the wind and comes out during the day and is very, very visible. Yesterday when I happened to take the two little rascals that share our home with us out to the backyard they immediately reacted, barking furiously and attacking the fence across the backyard. I caught a glimpse of a smaller-than-usual form frantically leaving the area of the bins and seeking shelter behind the fence, in a cedar  hedge. I felt badly for the little fellow and spoke encouragingly to it even while I herded our two back into the house.

Encounters of a hostile nature between animals seemingly with little in common is no doubt common enough in nature; each instinctively reacts to the survival instinct with which nature has equipped all animals; in this instance the territorial imperative linked to a food supply.