Identifying German mammals

The other night coming home I spotted a small furry creature about the size of a big rat outside our house. I was watching it as it scuttled away and could not see it's head in the dark but it had a squat, thick and furry body. I was waiting to see a long tail thinking it must be a rat but instead it seemed to have a short, wide tail. It went into the wood shed and made a racket of screeching and weird noises that I couldn't identify. Then I heard it in the garden and few minutes later, it sounded like it had a friend the whole time and they were having a noisy argument. Since then we have heard the same noises INSIDE the house but only at night. It has very short legs so there is definitely lots of scuttling, it is not a cat. Then two days ago I smelt a terrible smell in the back of our laundry/storage room. I said to hubby "Somethings in there! It's either dead or peeing everywhere!". He went in there and checked the whole place out and swore he couldn't find anything. I am sure we have a couple of nocturnal visitors, are there raccoons in Germany? Do you have any idea what our little mammals might be. Otherwise I think I may borrow a Jack Russel to find them.

Marder?

:-) There are racoons in Germany. But they are a lot bigger than German rats;P Also depends on the area where you live...so where is that?

Yes, as Grampus has said it is probably a Marder or an Iltis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustela_putorius

Perhaps it was a wolpertinger?

Eierlegende Wollmilchsau?

If it is a Marder, you better check any cabels they could have been chewing on. They love that and they especially seem to love to wreck cars.

feral?

Yup I would check your cables I was living outside Berlin lots of trees around m little bungalow and my car started to cut out suddenly then start again, took it too the garage and the guy looked at the car saw paw prints and then checked under the bonnet and yes little barstewards had been having cable pie you can get a little sensor fitted that emits a ultrasonis noise or if you have a dog u can shake his blenket over the engine this should also deter them.

Marder's are bigger than rats as well. They look like long fury tubes. If it was small and roundish then it was an Igel (Hedgehog).

OP is British. If she can't recognise a hedgehog, the Queen will have to revoke her passport!

OP also said it was dark outside...

You can catch them with something like this and a boiled egg as bait: http://www.amazon.de/Marderfalle-Tierfalle...0/dp/B001Q8V4TG

Funny that, I have a Jack Russell and I never see any strange furry creatures outside my house!!!

A marten chewed through some cables in my car a couple of years ago. They look similar to a weasel or ferret and they're quite the plague in Germany. If they take up residence in your house (usually in the space under the roof) it's really hard to get them out and their droppings smell awful.

I beleive that the Pine Marten is the same as Our Marder!

Nasty fuckers they are!

Bunch of different names for the same thing... Wild Ferret.

What about a forest dormouse? At my field site, we have these guys in our nest boxes and I would say they're a little bigger than a rat, nocturnal, and make this horrible 'eeeh, eeeh, eeeh' squeak when disturbed. Just a guess though.

Maybe it was a small dog

Nasty indeed. There are different kinds but the most common one in Germany is the Steinmarder, I believe.

I submit to you, for your approval, that possibly -- only possibly -- your creature was in fact Ron Jeremy:

Nice title! Did it maybe look like this: Gartenschläfer/Garden Doormouse?