I am having problems with raccoons entering my house thru the pet door to eat my cat's food. As raccoons are nocturnal, I would like to fashion some sort or timer lock that could be added to the pet door (or in addition to it) that would cause the pet door to be unlocked only during the day, say 6 am - 9pm.

I have considered the collar emitter type - but on at least 2 occasions the cat was sitting on the inside of the door while the raccoon was on the outside of the door. A proximity door would have let the raccoon enter with the cat be so close.

Exterminating the raccoon is not really a solution, as I am sure another would pop up eventually. And I would prefer that the cat has access to the house (garage actually).

Does anyone have any simple solutions or useful suggestions?

Thanks,

Mauki

 

My suggestion would be to contact your local animal control and have them trap and remove the racoon to a different area. I personally would not suggest a lock on the door unless it is actually manually operated. We had this sort of problem when we lived near the woods and we often had to have bothersome racoons removed.

Racoons can be carriers of rabies, so the fact that you have them in your area also brings to mind that you should have all of your animals, including your cat vaccinated. Also, oftentimes racoons will attack cats and small dogs for the food stuffs, so I honestly think the best course of action is having the racoon removed from the area.

Hope this helps.

 

I agree that having the animal removed, and updating your animals shots, is a great idea. For the pet door problem, have you considered getting a manual lock pet door, and you could simply unlock it in the AM and lock it again at night? Perhaps this will not work for you, but they have ones you can set so the cat can only go out (set it that way overnight so he can go out in the AM), or only go in, or do both, or neither. You can get them online at petsmart.com, and probably a billion other places

 

Excellent idea on the timed pet door! I also have come to this conclusion after many raccoon intrusions. My neighbor and I have trapped and relocated 7 raccoons between us with no end in sight. The longest lull between raccoon invasions was 2 months. It's an endless battle. A timer attached to a sliding door could remove all nocturnal invaders-raccoons,fox,skunk,even rat. Unfortunately I can find no company that produces these. Why? It's a simple idea that many of us could living in semi-rural areas could use.