…this time last year we discovered a similar visitor in our backyard
Some of you may remember the racoon we found in our deck box last year. We managed to get a couple of photos before it scurried off and never returned. All spring we’ve had a heavy metal pan sitting on top of the box so we figured that would be enough of a deterrent to keep the racoons out of the box.
When our dog Frances started to get excited and agitated around the outside of the box this week my husband suspected that the racoon had returned. We took the dog back into the house and quickly the racoon escaped. When we opened the box we found another surprise.
The mama returned shortly after but she wasn’t sure what to do.
We called Animal Control and they told us to make the area very uncomfortable by playing loud music, especially at night, and throwing in some dog fur into the box. The one thing not to do is add moth balls because they are too toxic for the babies. Apparently racoons have more than one den site so the theory is that the mother will take her babies somewhere else.
We were all set to do that but my husband didn’t want to wait until nightfall so he started by opening the box all the way. Again the mama racoon scurried away. It didn’t take long before she returned and one by one she removed her babies and waddled across the deck and the backyard, up the chain link fence and into the neighbours yard. We were afraid she was going to move into our old garage or crawl under our deck but I guess one of her other den sites is in someone else’s backyard.
Mama Cormier 
First, let me say I hate raccoons, but the mother in me immediately issued an ‘awwwww!’. It’s hard not to when little babies are involved. Poor mama raccoon was likely very disturbed when you discovered her babies.
I’m sorry for your neighbours though … 😉
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I feel exactly the same way. I wasn’t sure if I should go to the neighbours and tell them but I really don’t know which yard she ended up in.
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Cute, but they are a real nuisance, especially if you have pets.
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I was more nervous for our dog because she really wanted to get into that box. Another neighbour came between a mother raccoon and her dog and received some nasty bites. Our dog is considerably smaller than her dog and I’m sure the raccoon would win.
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‘Coons can be very mean.
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I’ve seen and heard their nasty side.
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I found one in my deck box as well a couple of year’s ago even after I bought a lock and locked it (that was some surprise when I opened the box I’ll tell you)! Turns out they’d broken the hinges on the other side after I locked it to get back in. So Rod fixed that for me and silicon-ed the lug nut so they couldn’t unscrew it. That seems to have worked but of course I haven’t opened the box yet this year (planning on doing that tomorrow).
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Wow. They are very strong and smart. I did see one head into your backyard last week.
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Oh and I can guess which backyard the raccoon went too as well. I’m thinking the north of you.
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Actually she went into the yard east of us but I wouldn’t be surprised if she doubled back to the north.
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