Raccoons Slowly Taking Over New York City

Raccoons Slowly Taking Over New York City

I'm not surprised. Raccoons are amazing animals. Not only are they smart, but they will co-operate like humans, in that one raccoon will hold open a trash can lid and postpone his own dinner while the others feast. They would occasionally sneak into our home in Austin by going through the doggie doors, which was not easy, because it required two steps - one door into the garage, then another from the garage into the hallway.

Coming into our house did not turn out quite as well as they planned, since we had two dogs, one of whom was a raccoon-eating black male Lab who didn't even warn them with a bark. More than once I'd hear the other dog barking and come out to see what the fuss was, and find Shadow with a raccoon in his mouth. The good news is that he would drop the 'coon by the doggie door when he saw me, as if to say "OK, it's your responsibility now," and I'd manage to scare the wily little bastard back outside. It wasn't really a major problem because Shadow never picked up any rabies or parasites, but the coons' fear left behind an awful smell. At one point a pregnant female raccoon snuck into our attic (where the dogs could not get) by peeling back a crucial piece of siding next to the fireplace. How can they figure out that sort of thing? I wouldn't have known it was possible. There's no food in our attic, so she had to go out to forage, and that's how the exterminator caught her. The sad part of that story is that her infant cubs got stuck in the chimney when they tried to look for her, and not all of them lived through the process.