Sunday, July 12, 2009

Close encounters

So Greg and I were catching up on our tivo tonight when we heard something break and shatter in the backyard. Greg suspected that it was the cat knocking over the ceramic flower pots on top of our fence (yeah, probably not the brightest idea to put ceramic pots there). So he heads to the back door and as he is opening it I'm ABOUT so say "make sure it's really the cat" - well I didn't even get that sentence out...when Greg yells, "oh sh*$" and slams the door. Here is what he saw...

Our little raccoon friend took off running when Greg opened the door. As soon as he slammed the door, it came back! While Greg went hunting for the camera, the raccoon and I just locked eyes. It had no fear. It just stared me down. Actually it was kinda cute, but it was big. Then it started eating the cat's food again, while the Oreo just sat at the top of the fence behind the raccoon, watching this wild animal eat its food. By the time we found a soft foam ball to throw at it and scare it away, it was taking off for a tree in our backyard which it climbed. (If anyone has any advice on how to scare away a raccoon please share! - it didn't seem to be scared of us at all!).

Well we've seen raccoons in the neighborhood before, we've smelled skunks (hopefully we don't encounter one of those!), but I'm not really sure we can prevent them from eating our poor kitty's food. One thing's for sure - next time we hear something suspicious outside, we'll definitely flash a flashlight BEFORE opening the door!

3 comments:

Yaya said...

Welcome to our world! Since we've had the cat outside, we've had raccoons, opposums (sp?), and birds of all sizes feast on our cat's food. I have no advice to share. The raccoons make a mess though - at least I think it's them - as they need water while they eat. The water bowl is always filthy after they visit. Sometimes too they move the bowl so it's not where we left it. (We saw an entire family of raccoons the night we came home around 3am hiding under a nearby car).

Sarah said...

In my yearlong raccoon battle, my advice would be, don't get a cat door. At pet stores, you can buy concentrated wolf urine (ew), but I heard Oreo might not be a fan either.

Billy said...

Sounds like a problem for a couple of my friends. Mr. Smith & Mr. Wesson.