Raccoons are back. Woke up this morning stepped out the back door to walk the dog and found the garbage cans tipped, bags dragged out, garbage everywhere and paw prints on everything. Joy.
Morning is not the best time to face a mess like that what with my sleep addled brain. I tend to have a rather sensitive stomach in the early morning so cleaning up old garbage and the leftover little bits of food is rather nauseating and gag inducing.
I don’t blame the raccoons for trying after all they are just animals doing what animals do. That doesn’t mean I’ll just let them do it however. It makes a rather large mess and I’ve also had the unpleasant experience of being hissed at by one last year having startled it leaving the house.
Just because they look cute doesn’t mean they wouldn’t injure one of the kids or the dog. Never mind the thought of rabies. It also seems to attract other animals once the raccoons start the skunks and deer tend to decide our yard is open for picking.
So I guess it is back to adding bungee cords to the lids. It has worked every time in the past and I only need to do it for a week or so. Just long enough for them to give up. The first few nights I’ll always find the cans tipped in the mornings but unopened and no mess, they give up after a couple of days and move on problem solved.
Compared to what else has been in our garbage in the past raccoons aren’t so bad. Last year we had an issue with a bobcat. I was rather surprised when I realized it. I couldn’t figure out how the raccoons were still getting into the garbage as the lids were bungee corded on and I had even tied them down to the cement pads they sit on.
Then one evening walking the dog before bed I saw what looked like a funny shaped and rather large cat. After doing a double take I realized it was a bobcat and went back inside very quickly. In the morning I looked closer at the garbage cans and found paw prints which were obviously not raccoon prints, they measured 2.5 inches width wise. I called Manitoba Conservation and they confirmed it was certainly a bobcat and even had pictures of it sitting on our street.
Thanks for the warning. A bobcat may not be likely to attack a person but can the same be said for a dog who thinks every living creature should be just as excited to see him as he is to see them? Also the pad for our garbage cans is literally 2 feet from our back door; something tells me that accidentally surprising a bobcat by walking out a door 2 feet away from it may not turn out well.
The raccoons actually don’t sound so bad all of a sudden.
