If you are fond of your cats, you should keep them inside your house. Cats which are allowed outside get fleas and tapeworms. They can get hit by cars and savaged by dogs. They damage the environment by killing birds, usually the young ones newly out of the nest. (A cat can may kill 6-7 birds a day.) When the parent birds die of old age, a whole bird lineage is wiped out.

So seal up your cat door and accomplish two things at once - being good to your cats and keeping out the raccoons.

About dogs - a gardening magazine I get ran a letter from a reader. She had leashed her dog in the vegetable garden to drive away a raccoon, and the raccoon killed the dog.