Raccoon

Wanted to pass along the latest on the Raccoon. He'd been coming into
the pantry and helping himself to catfood for over a month.
Occasionally, he'd empty both cat bowls of food and then get a third
helping directly from the box.

Mack was kind enough to loan us a trap. After a few trys we managed
to have the trigger set appropriately and got the trap to close on
him. Unfortunatley, the clips holding the cage door were not securely
crimped and (as can be seen from the picture) the Raccoon managed to
pulll the door off.

After he got out the first time, I was sure he wouldn't be crazy
enough to get trapped again – but he did. Knowing that once he'd
discovered this paradise of free food - there would be no discouraging
him (except for maybe getting a dog). I initially attempted to put
the cage and raccoon into a box and then put the box in a plastic
bag... that was a disaster. The coon descimated both box and bag and
I will be picking up scraps of plastic bag for years to come. I had
to borrow Ed's 22 to shoot him, but it took a day to get the gun… so
he ended up in the cage for a second night. He was rattling around
quite a bit and Cathy really felt bad for him and eventually made me
crush up to oxycodone (2 whole tablets) into some peanut butter and
feed it to him – geesh, there's some real street value to that. At
least he quieted down after that until I get over to Ed's to pick up
the handgun.

The pantry has been uneventful since... and the trap - with it's
super-reinforced door hinge - is worthy of much larger prey.