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<\/a><\/p>\n2.\u00a0 Bruno, the livestock guardian, is confined to the barn yard and pastures.\u00a0 He cannot reach the deck.<\/p>\n
3. The ferocious German shepherds and Rottweiler usually patrolling the deck and back yard are in the house at night, guarding the couch.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 So the only one left guarding the dog food is Little Bit.\u00a0 And the only scary thing about Little Bit is the way he twines around your legs in the morning when you’re carrying a full bucket of milk back from the barn.<\/p>\n Well, that and the kneading when he’s sitting in your lap.\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0 Ouch.<\/p>\n It’s a recipe for disaster.\u00a0 Or least a prime opportunity for dog food theft.<\/p>\n It’s not hard to know when you’ve been hit.\u00a0 These are the tell-tale signs:<\/p>\n Which means it’s time to break the Havahart trap out of the shed.\u00a0 Havaharts are excellent for catching the typical raccoon, opossum, or skunk that passes through our area.\u00a0 They are easy to set and not particularly dangerous to use.\u00a0 Unless, of course you catch the previously mentioned skunk.\u00a0 But in this case, I guessed it was a raccoon.\u00a0 Raccoons have dexterous hands and when you see doors opened, instead of chewed through, they’re usually the culprit.\u00a0 And this raccoon was a bit more clever than most.<\/p>\n I set the trap next to the dog food and put in a cracked egg as bait.\u00a0 Raccoons adore eggs and will often forgo killing a duck or hen if she’s setting on a nest.\u00a0 Instead, they will gorge themselves on the eggs.\u00a0 Too bad this critter passed on the egg and simply filled up on dog food.\u00a0 He even tore the door entirely off its hinges during his feast.<\/p>\n The following night, he still avoided the trap and, this time, tipped over the entire container.<\/p>\n This made me suspect our critter had brought a few friends and held a dog food orgy.\u00a0 Except for one thing.\u00a0 Over by the water fountain on the deck was a solitary set of wet prints, fading quickly in the morning sun.<\/p>\n So.\u00a0 It was<\/strong> a raccoon.\u00a0 A wily one.\u00a0 And he appeared to be acting alone.<\/p>\n Little suggested we just start keeping the dog food in the pantry inside the house.\u00a0 That kid is real practical.\u00a0 But he has no fighting spirit.\u00a0 Middle suggested we attach his pocket knife to the inside of the cage.\u00a0 With the blade angled just right the raccoon could enter the cage, but would impale himself on his way out.\u00a0 That kid is going to make some branch of the U.S. military very happy one day.<\/p>\n We compromised.\u00a0 I carried the food container into the family room for the night.\u00a0 Then we reset the trap.\u00a0 The next morning we found that we had caught the neighbor’s cat.\u00a0 Jeez.\u00a0 Why does it have to be the cat belonging to the neighbor who carries a shotgun.\u00a0 To get the mail.<\/p>\n The morning after that we found this in the trap:<\/p>\n Sigh.\u00a0 There’s a surprising lack of team effort around this place.<\/p>\n Eventually I got tired of stubbing my toe on the dog food container and put it back outside.\u00a0 But this time I tied it closed with some telephone extension cord I had laying around (I know, I know.\u00a0 Creative, but odd at the same time.).\u00a0 I woke up to this:<\/p>\n Really?\u00a0 Really???!!!!\u00a0 Spring the trap without getting caught.\u00a0 Push up the telephone cord.\u00a0 And then…and then…you are not going to believe this….<\/p>\n Dip your little paws in the the egg yolk and leave tracks all over the deck.\u00a0 They are so clear you can even see them in the above picture.\u00a0 And here’s a better shot by the deck stairs:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n