Oh my! I loved my raccoons, but they had better manners than yours. Since you live in a wooded area, I doubt that relocating would work since others will just expand their territory. Perhaps a call to your local conservation office can offer some type deterrant.
Mine came out of the woods to their regular feeding areas I provided but never went into the fenced yard area where I let the dogs got out. In fact, if the dogs were outside, the coons usually stayed away till the dogs came in. They got used to me standing at the windows watching them and weren't deterred by the motion lights, but with only a couple exceptions who were comfortable with me being outside near them, they left if I went outside. They seldom messed with other things in the yard. Yours sound more like "city" coons who for generations have become acclimated to people and pets and have no fear of them. I really don't have a solution for you, but for the sake of your domestic pets, you can't allow this to continue. The cats could easily be killed by the coons and the wounds inflicted on the dogs could become quite infected. I hope John D sees your post. He is quite competent with his group and hopefully has some suggestions for you.

Keep your cats and dogs inside at night so they stay out of harms way (relocating one batch of raccoons will just bring you new ones). You might also set out a bowls of water for them so they leave the bird bath alone and some cat food to keep them out of the trash. This approach sure works in our neighborhood.

Studies have shown by the way, that raccoon populations -- even urban ones -- are remarkable stable. If raccoons are killed or trapped they bring up their numbers by producing large litters each year to make up for the loss. So you might as well learn to live with them.

Do you have skunks yet? Our raccoons hang out with skunks. They never get sprayed, but some neighborhood cats and dogs never learn how to deal with out striped neighbors.

Thanks ya'll,

I guess the raccoons read my last post, they stayed away last night. Actually, I think they went to my in-laws house, a couple acres away. Her dogs have been getting beat up too.

I wish I could bring all my pets in at night, but we're living in a TINY little cottage right now, less than half the size of the house we moved out of. The old house was plenty big for me and hubby, all eight cats and four dogs, but I don't think I could close the doors if I brought them all in here. We'd be like co-eds in a phone booth.

That's a good idea to leave something out just for them. We have pretty little gazebo about 75 feet away from the house that we never use, so I might put some goodies out there for them. That would be a good way to use up all that cheap cat food my kitties refuse to eat, and it would keep them away from the house. I was planning on installing a water feature this spring, so I'd better get to it if I want to save my birdbath.

Oh yes, we've also got skunks, but everyone has learned to leave them alone. We rehabbed some little stinkers years ago and we all learned avoidance and placation techniques. Skunks get very cranky when they don't get what they want.
Some lessons you just don't forget.

Thanks everyone.

CK, maybe you could fence in an area for your pets at night or buy an outdoor kennel for their protection. You could probably construct one yourselves with some chainlink fence. The raccoons probably don't recognize your yard as your pets' turf, but as their own.

As far as the vandalism of your birdbath goes, are they tipping the whole thing over, or just the basin? We had some knock over our basin a couple of times. Since we couldn't stop them from trying to get into it, I secured the basin to the base with some silicone caulk, and also stuck a pail there for them to stand on. While it's accomodating them, it also stops them from wrecking it. The babes liked to play in ours, but the adults usually just want a drink. If they can stand on something and get their mouth in there, that's usually good enough. Afterward, I simply stuck a bucket of water out there for them to drink out of. You don't have to worry about changing the water when it gets dirty, either. They're used to drinking out of streams or puddles.

Watch it if they're getting on your roof. I've heard of them nesting on roofs or climbing into chimneys. I had a neighbor up the road who had them carousing around up there. They would climb up in his tree and go right from the one limb to the roof. I told him to figure out the spot they're jumping from, get a jar with a metal lid, poke some holes in the lid and put some ammonia in it, and hang it up there. That solved the problem for him. I've heard of mothballs working as well. You have to be careful of using the ammonia around your pets though. If it's too close, it can be harmful to them.

I've heard of keeping an area brightly lit at night to keep them out of one spot, but I don't know about that. We have motion sensitive 100W spots in back, and the ones that come around here don't seem to be deterred by it. It's supposed to be bothersome to them because they're largely nocturnal, but the ones that frequent here nosh at our birdfeeder, which is only 15-20 feet away from the lights. Of course, it's possible they don't bother them because the spots are directed away from that area, so direct light doesn't hit them.

You can fasten the lids of garbage cans with bungee cords or weights, but I can't personally tell you how well that would or wouldn't work. They're probably smart enough to get a bungee cord off, but then again, it would probably startle the bejeezus out of them when it snapped off. My one neighbor stows his in a "mini-shed". Basically a plywood box built off a basic frame. It has padlocked front panel that swings out to access the cans, and it has vent holes in it so the smell isn't too bad problem in summer. He painted his to match the house, and it blends right into the side.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head.

We have fairly bold coons here too, but they definitely take off when the dogs go out. Still, I store my bird seed in large metal containers with weights on them, inside a large locking box on the porch. The one that didn't fit, has 40 pounds in barbell weights draped across it on chains! I can barely get in, even though one coon did manage! Trash cans are also similarly enclosed. I try to make sure that bird feeders are empty at night, and my little pond has a chickenwire enclosure.

Please make sure that all of your animals are up to date with their rabies shots, and keep them inside as much as you can. Raccoons are not the only danger out there for them.

wow! where are you located? sounds like a nuisance but maybe fun lol
people hunt them here so there numbers are kept pretty low. i rarely see on or hear one, but there vocals are adorable.
but yes you seem like you are in raccoon city lol. can you put up a privacy fence? 6 - 8 ft high? this is the only solution i can think of. i have a 6 ft high privacy fence and nothing comes in here. not even the deer, which they tell me jumps well over 6ft but this must be exagerated. the fence keeps out the possums and even the rabbits and the squirrels. so im sure it would keep out coons too, the down side is the cost of privacy fences are way too high

A six foot fence will not deter a raccoon -- if there's something it wants on the other side.

I am so heartened at the kind sensible responses here. Learning to live with wildlife whose areas we have encroached upon is much better than the killing variety. In rereading your original post, I realize you aren't actively feeding them. This may be the crux of your problem. lol. Seriously, I had an automatic feeder that held 7-8 of the large bags of dog food and 3 separate water bowls which were the heated type so they had fresh water in the winter. If they ate all their food (and, no I didn't always have the feeder full) they seemed to realize that was it for the night and left. Oh, they might wander around and sniff just in case there was a goodie they missed, but didn't really break into anything. I made sure other food items like the birdseed was kept inside in metal cans with lids and my dogs and cats were fed inside so that wasn't a temptation. My dogs yard was fenced and although it was only about 4' high common rectangular wire fencing, that seemed to be enough to let them know the boundary between dog area and coon area. Wish you luck with these little bandits. Once you hit a formula where you can cohabitate in peace, you will sure enjoy watching their antics and particularly the babies when weaning time comes. Three or 4 babies can make more noise and confusion that the entire group of adults combined. One paw holding onto a bowl while another paw and mouth work on another one. Typical kids!! Keep us informed on how it is going.

i have tons of bird feeders inside my fence and i believe the reason no animal, accept the birds, comes into my yard is because they cant see the feeders. now i dont know if they can smell birdseeds lol but really a fence will keep them out. ive even had cut up apple on a platform feeder that stayed left over night and it was never touched. and ive seen possums and deer right at my front door so i know critters are very close by. i think they must think the fence is a wall lol

I'd seriously try to keep the pets away from wildlife. Every once in a while our dog manages to grab a critter, and the vet always insists on revaccinating her against rabies and then tells us not to kiss her for a few days (or vice versa). Raccoons harbor rabies, and the idea is that the dog is vaccinated but we're not, so she could spread it to us in saliva. If your dogs are getting beaten up, there would be lots of opportunity for you come in contact with infectious material. Consult your vet, and be careful.

"she could spread it to us in saliva"

You don't need help from wild animals to catch a serious bacterial disease if you kiss your dog. There recently has been an increase in the occurrence of Leptospira, which can spread from dogs to humans and may cause kidney disease in both.

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions, ya'll.

The raccoons actually come down the trees into the fenced dog yard when they don't want to walk around the fence. Or, they try to walk on top of the fence, it's chainlink! Or, they drop like paratroopers onto the roof, but they only do thatin the middle of the night, when I'm finally in that really good deep sleep. One night they landed on the roof and ran back and forth over the bedroom, the big dogs running back and forth under the window barking. What gets me is that the garbage cans are on the other end of the house and they can easily go around the fence to get to the food and water. I think they enjoy the chaos. I think it's some sort of raccoon gang ritual, they can't join the club if they don't successfully finish a mission.

They crack me up when they move the garbage cans. The cans have locking lids so they can't get into them, but they used to knock them over. I've trained them not to tip them over. I used a dog training method where you put 10-15 pennies in a soda can and rubber band some plastic wrap on top, them set the cans on whatever you want to train the animals not to get on. When they try to get on the trashcans they knock off the soda cans and it makes a big racket. It only took a couple of nights and they stopped knocking the garbage over. It worked soo well that they learned how to move the trashcans without making the soda cans fall over.

I tried the soda can thing on the container where I keep the dog and cat food. But this box is only about 18 inches tall and those 'coon figured out how to pick up the soda cans and set them down on the floor without dropping too many. They amaze me.

We had lights on motion sensors, but they very quickly learned not to run away from the lights. A funny thing happened one night - My mother-in-law was having diner with us and this happened right outside the dining room window.) One of 'em landed on top of a wide metal cabinet and BAM the light came on, and he tried to scramble away but couldn't get any traction so his little claws just clanged and scrambled to the left and then to the right, and then he tried to jump straight up but flipped off the back instead. It was like the lights came on and the darned 'coon started tap dancing. Now she jokes about how I train raccoons as well dogs.

Another funny happened when we were getting the house ready to move into. (The previous tennents only went outside to throw bags of trash in the yard, so the raccoons where used to feasting.) I was here cleaning late one night all alone and went out to have a smoke. Well, a couple minutes after I sat down on the porch some huge creature jumped up on the railing near my head. Well, I screamed and it screamed and I ran for the door and it fell off the porch. That was my first night alone in this house and my first experience with these raccoons.

It took us a while to figure out why the raccoons would come to the house when we would go out on the porch. Like I said earlier, the prev tenants only came on the porch to throw bags of garbage into the yard. They did this for years. I guess the raccoons associated the opening of the porch door with food. Some kind of Pavlovian response, huh? So you see, we moved into their neighborhood, it's just taking us a while to learn all the new rules.

**Hey Wild4wildlife, I worked at a vet hospital before we moved here, and it's true that deer can jump 6 foot privacy fence. Many times we'd get called out to a client's property because deer would jump the fence. The deer would either have a broken leg from getting caught on the fence OR the deer would be confused on how to get back out of the yard. The strangest was a doe that had gotten into a 2nd story corn crib, without a ladder. The only way she could've gotten up there was by getting on top of a truck and jumping the remaining 4-5 feet into the open door.

You know, I thought I left all these wildlife shenanagens behind when I moved out of the country and into the suburbs.

Ya'll take care

I found this article with some goods tips on keeping raccoons out my yard.

http://www.acmehowto.com/howto/pest/racoons-yard.php

Here is a link that might be useful: How to keep Raccoons out of your yard

We had some drainage work done in our yard a few years back and the contractor laid new sod over the bare dirt when he was finished. Nightly, for three weeks, the racoons would come into the yard and roll the sod up to get to the worms and grubs beneath. I tried motion lights and the high-pitched "Yard Guard" devices to no avail.

I had just about given up when a friend brought over some rolled bright orange plastic fence webbing, (the kind you often see near streams or heritage trees at construction sites). He told us to roll the fencing over the sod each evening. I was skepical at first but it worked like a charm.

Apparently, the racoons don't like stepping across this material as they catch their feet in the webbing. I've heard of similar methods of using chicken-wire in areas that cats use as litter boxes...

Mike

There should be a horror movie made from this. :0)

yea tell me bout those coons. they fight all night up there in the attic. then they play all day. i caught one doing electical work and another doing ac&h work on my pluem. they are sure cute but they sure aren't electrical or air-conditioning mechanics.

What a bunch of idiots!!! Kill the bastards!!! Trap them and take them off over 10 miles. I live in a housing area and I've been trapping squirrels for over a month and have "relocated" over 25. It works!! You can't shoot them around the houses and they don't realize that I've watched them crawl into their dormers & on the roofs getting into the houses. They are TREE RATS! They will chew anything. Coons are the same thing. They used to BREAK in the back door and eat my cat's food in the kitchen! Enough of that!!!! I trapped them and put a friggin hole in their head!!! No more coons! They're dangerous! They're a carrier of RABIES and can get diseases from their feces, they stink to high Heaven, they will KILL your dogs and eat your cats. WISE UP TREE HUGGERS!

Forgot to tell the other story...….I know of a man that lives in the same area and his wife thought the coons were so much fun to watch...…...They bought dog food and started feeding them to watch them...……...One night, he forgot to put the garage door down...………...The got into the garage and into the motor of his car...……….They tore out EVERYTHING in the motor and all of the wiring, demolished his landau top and destroyed his paint job on his brand new Cadillac! Completely totaled it! Wise up people!!!

Nice story but pure bullshit and the only morons here are those who forget that the land actually belongs to all of God's creatures not just the two legged ones that get their rocks off destroying it and killing to get their rocks off.