Something tried to eat my shoes (pics)

The badly mangled one was in the front yard, the slightly-bitten one was still on our back deck. 


We have lots of wild animals here in Victoria; in our back yard we see river otters, deer, peacocks, falcons, and eagles. There are also reports of coyotes and cougars. We also have neighborhood dogs, the one across the street has no training and runs over here sometimes.


What do you think it was? Does it like my scent, or the opposite? 


My husband's and daughter's were also on the deck, untouched. 

Does Old Navy still have flip-flops this late in the season? 

do you have raccoons around?

Yes! We have a mama racoon (with no tail, poor thing) who has 4 sweet fat babies. They live in the back yard near the compost, or at least they are around there a lot. The mama looks so scraggly I give her cat food sometimes. 

I would say a dog, but it would have to be a small dog by those teethmarks. Weasels seems to be inordinately fond of rubber (well, ferrets are anyway :tongue2, so I wouldn't be surprised if an otter did it. Or a raccoon--they'll get into anything, especially the babies.

I just looked it up and we have weasels and marmots (?) here, too. The dog across the street is a big black lab. Some of the bites look triangular-shaped.

(You can click on the image for bigger pictures.) 

My guess is the racoon. I think the dog would have run off with the shoe, or mangled it more than it is. Those flip flops aren't made of very sturdy material, so a dog could easily destroy it.
 

Do you have foxes around there? They're notorious for stealing shoes in our area. The forest rangers are constantly coming across dens filled with shoes they've swiped. :lol3: Maybe one just decided to munch on the spot.