For the past four days we have waged war against raccoons. First, some background.

We keep our dog food and bird seed on the back porch in metal cans. The two bird seed cans (one for black oil sunflower seeds, and the other for thistle seeds) are on one end of the porch - just a few steps away from our many bird feeders. Jake’s dog food can is on the other end of the porch next to his bowl. The convenience of having the cans close to where they’re needed helps us keep our pets - both domesticated and wild - fed in a timely manner. The cans look like small trash cans - with lids that fit snugly but which can be lifted off without much effort. Each holds a large bag of their respective foods.

Several nights ago, a raccoon turned over the dog food can, took off the top, and helped him/herself to a midnight feast on dog food. The sound of the can falling over woke Ron, and he switched on the back porch light. The raccoon ran across the patio and then turned around and stared back at Ron.

Ron wasn’t about to let a raccoon get the best of him, and so the next day, he put a stick of firewood on top of the can. “That’ll keep ‘em out,” he declared.

It didn’t. That night the raccoon again turned over the can and enjoyed a dog food meal. The firewood was lying on the porch next to the overturned can. So Ron added a heavy log to the top of the can and braced it against the brick on the side of the house. “They won’t get THAT off,” he said.

They did. We both slept through the sound of the log, firewood and can falling over on the porch. The raccoon enjoyed a third night of feasting on Jake’s dog food.

Yesterday I bought some bungee cords. I hooked one to the handle on one side of the can, threaded it through the handle on top of the lid, and then hooked the other end to the handle on the other side of the can. Then, even though the bird seed cans hadn’t been touched, I bungee corded them as well. An ounce of prevention and all that.

Morning dawned - and the dog food can was unmoved and unopened. Take THAT, raccoons!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 7:58 am and is filed under New House, Pets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.