Well, that was a fun morning!
I woke up around 2:20 a.m. today to the sound of what turned out to be a cat dish falling off the platform in our dining room, walked out to the living room, and was shocked to find a very large raccoon looking back at me.
It’s unclear who was more scared, the unwanted invader or the sleepy guy who found it, but my screams sent the raccoon scurrying back out the cat door to the backyard — which was the means by which it had gained access in the first place, as we learned after reviewing our Ring camera footage.
A closer review of the video archive (see below) showed that the raccoon (or perhaps its companion) had been in and out previously about an hour before, apparently staying in the house for about 10 minutes undetected.
Amazingly, we haven’t found any damage, and both of our cats seem fine.
Longtime readers and followers will remember this as the latest in a series of urban wildlife encounters caught on our backyard cameras.
But this latest one was a surprise. We have one of those fancy microchip pet doors, under the SureFlap brand, that theoretically allows only our two cats to enter.
With their small and dexterous hands, it turns out that raccoons can pry the door open the other way (the direction it normally swings when a cat exits), which doesn’t require a microchip to unlock in our particular model.
There is a solution in the device itself, an “intruder mode” that locks the pet door both ways temporarily when it detects an attempt to enter without a microchip. I’ve now activated this, and it seems to be working, as I discovered when the two raccoons returned for another attempted raid about two hours later.
However, this makes me uneasy about inadvertently preventing our own cats from getting back in the house. We’ve used this cat door for a few years, and love the concept. The cats get the freedom to come and go as they please, but stay mostly in the backyard, and can quickly run back into the house if they feel at risk.
The door does have a clock feature to prevent access at hours of our choosing, but I’m reluctant to introduce new restrictions on our cats, after years of free rein.
It has been a great setup, but as with all innovations, there are benefits and drawbacks, as I was reminded this morning! Right or wrong, my tendency in these situations is to double down by looking for another tech solution. I’ve been checking out motion-sensing lights, and other cat doors with two-way microchip capabilities.
Let me know if you have a better idea: todd@geekwire.com. In the meantime, I guess I’ll be sleeping in the living room, listening for a scratch at the door.
