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Woman reaches over to pet her cat, only it's a raccoon

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By adamg on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 7:36pm

The episode in Hingham did not end well for either party, although the raccoon got the worst of it.

Neighborhoods: 
South Shore
Free tagging: 
Hingham
Wildlife
Raccoons


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Comments

By Charles Bahne on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 7:48pm.

Glad to hear the cat is okay, at least!

By anon on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 7:50pm.

Misplaced superbowl commercial

By adamg on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 8:09pm.

By Finn on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:29pm.

Was thinking of this very ad.

By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 7:57pm.

I don't have a cat door.

(possums, foxes, and other small creatures that can figure things out being other reasons)

I hope she recovers, and rabies is not involved!

By Rocky on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 11:40am.

A pet door that only lets your micro-chipped cat in:

http://www.amazon.com/SureFlap-Microchip-Cat-Door-White/dp/B003EGIM3O/re...

By anon on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 4:16pm.

(and more humane as well): Don't let yout cat outside at all.

By Karen K. on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 10:15pm.

While the statistics certainly show that indoor kitties tend to live longer and healthier lives, there are nonetheless some cats who are helped by a pet door. We adopted a pair of cats this past Summer that had been abandoned outdoors by a neighbor who'd lost her home. The cats were only outside for a couple of weeks as we worked to befriend them, but they were already hooked on the great outdoors. These kitties took every opportunity to escape from our home and even began to run from us to avoid recapture. Only after we installed a cat door, and they knew they were free to come and go, did our newly adopted fur-babies willingly begin to spend any significant amount of time with us indoors.

By Karen K. on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 9:57pm.

For anyone now planning to replace their current cat door- SureFlap makes two different models controlled by your pet's microchip. The "cat door" linked to by the above post and available through Amazon is easily defeated by a persistent raccoon (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsKacrF1gIga), but the "pet door" made by the same company has been designed and tested specifically with raccoons in mind. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjeoSqdKLto.

By O-FISH-L on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 8:04pm.

I wonder if the screams broke the proposed noise ordinance?

By anonism on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 8:39pm.

Or is it the people there? Yes, that's it! The people!

By Elmer on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:43pm.

But clever thinking by the 73-year-old woman to capture the raccoon! They do carry rabies, and the fact that it came so close and attacked a human doesn't sound good. Unfortunate for the raccoon, but I hope the testing allows the victim to skip the unpleasant treatment that otherwise would be necessary.

By Hyde_Parker on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:34pm.

Not that I'm wishing rabies treatments on anyone, but the method of administration has become a lot less unpleasant in recent years.

By Gary C on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 7:33am.

Here's an updated one...
http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20140206/NEWS/140208003

By adamg on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 8:06am.

Thanks.

By Scratchie on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 8:52am.

"People need to understand that you can't feed these animals," Badger said. "It turns into a situation for someone else that has no idea."

Gosh, I thought that if you complained about your neighbors feeding wildlife, that made you a whiny loser. I seem to recall reading that somewhere recently.

Also, how awesome is it that the animal control officer is named "Badger"?

By anon on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 9:11am.

The police chief in a neighboring community was Mickey Roach.

By Sally on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 10:44am.

...instead of walking across the street and leaving a note. Not to mention raccoons have a fairly high incidence of rabies; opossums don't. That said, if you want to go the whole cat-door route you are making it easier for this kind of thing to happen--we used to get stray cats coming in occasionally and making themselves at home. Maybe the town of Hingham should have pre-emptively sent a couple of squad cars out to tell this old lady that her cat door was a potential menace.

By Scratchie on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 11:30am.

Sure thing, No possible downside to that approach. Because if there's one thing that selfish, clueless people appreciate, it's their neighbors giving them advice on what they're doing wrong.

By Sally on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 11:55am.

Are we really going to rehash this? Someone was feeding feral cats--questionable maybe but hardly selfish--and opossums were joining said cats. We're not talking about space-savers or parking on the sidewalk. I still think it's absurd to be concerned about dangers from possums but again--it's a minor, solvable problem that the "feeder" probably wasn't even aware of. I used to have a bird feeder until I realized that rodents were snacking on the spilled seeds. Would I have rather gotten a neighborly note alerting me or have had Jose from city pest control show up on my doorstep to tell me I was being a nuisance? Definitely the former.

By bulgingbuick on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 8:56am.

must be from Weymouth.

By Scratchie on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 9:22am.

High-yo!

By Karen K. on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 9:36am.

When I was a kid, my parents had a pair of pet doors in series, one into the garage and another between the garage and utility room in the house. We eventually discovered that a VERY large raccoon had been feeding regularly from the cats' bowl of kibble in the kitchen! Needless to say, changes were made. When my DH and I decided recently that we wanted a cat door for our fur-babies, we researched the issue and ultimately purchased a SureFlap microchip-controlled PET door, and are very happy with it. (Note: the SureFlap CAT door is not designed to be raccoon resistant.) These are pricey, but will be worth it to some!

By BikerGeek on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 7:31pm.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/02/06/raccoon/QtpAEb...

By SwirlyGrrl on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 8:39pm.

How awful.