Digg co-founder Kevin Rose can add one new skill to his resume: Dog-saving raccoon-battler.
Actually, Rose is worth a lot of money. He doesn’t need a resume.
Anyway, the tech celebrity woke up in the dead of night to the sound of his dog, the excellently-named Toaster, yelping. He leapt out of the bed and ran to his aid. Toaster was engaged in a nasty fight with a raccoon. Raccoons, you’ll remember from your uncle from when you were little, have sharp claws and teeth, and they can take out animals and little kids twice their size.
Rose didn’t hesitate. He jumped into the fray, thrust his hands into the tornado of claws and teeth, grabbed the raccoon, lifted it over his head like he was really pissed, and then hucked it down his concrete outdoor stairs Ric Flair-style — and then he headed after it.
The whole thing was captured on security cam, which Rose promptly released on YouTube.
The fate of the raccoon flying down the stairs is, admittedly, hard to watch, and we feel bad for the animal. But Rose, startled from sleep, was intent on saving his dog — and as quickly as possible — and he did so. He acknowledges his treatment of the raccoon in the opening of the video:
“I do not encourage animal violence. I wanted to get the wild animal as far away from us as possible.”
As for the Toaster, he is OK, but he “has some claw and bite marks.”
Here’s the full video:
His video has exploded on YouTube, surpassing 3 million views. Meanwhile, the thread on Reddit and gone insane as well, thanks to Rose’s general virility in dealing with a heavy situation.
“If I was him I would move. Raccoons hold grudges,” writes Silly_Look.
Later, Rose went to get checked out by a doctor, and he posted this to his Twitter account: “Getting IV for fluids, horrible stomach bug after touching that raccoon … Good times.”
