OK my heart has now settled down to normal rate. Since about Sunday it
has been obvious that there was some kind of critter in my yard at night.
I've been assuming it was a racoon because it has been playing with
Tsuki's squeaky toys.

Yup - nothing quite like it being pitch dark outside and hearing squeka
squeka squeaks - which is the sound that happens when Tsuki just stands
crunching on a squeaky toy. Tsuki likes to take his toys outside but only
brings them back in about half the time. Since I've been assuming racoon
and they can be dangerous to dogs I've been watching things. Not closely
enough, I guess. Tonight I'm moving laundry from the washer to the dryer
and I let the dogs out. I see Freeway dancing around with something big,
fluffy and grey in his mouth. Problem is I don't have any toys that big.
YIKES! But it doesn't seem to be struggling. I run down the stairs and
call Freeway. He comes running - without big grey fluffy thing.

So I call Tsuki, who apparently scoops up said big grey fluffy thing and
runs up the stairs into the laundry room with it. HEY! I tell him to
drop it and he promptly does. It is an opossum, maybe 10-12 pounds.
Fortunately neither dog is particularly interested in killing the thing
and its gone into its catatonic state "playing possum". So I get the dogs
to step over it back into the kitchen. Then I shut the door and shove the
possum outside. It didn't look particularly damaged.

They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum left within a
few minutes. I hope it stays away.

--
Diane Blackman
http://dog-play.com/
http://dogplay.com/Shop/

wrote:

OK my heart has now settled down to normal rate. Since about Sunday it
has been obvious that there was some kind of critter in my yard at night.
I've been assuming it was a racoon because it has been playing with
Tsuki's squeaky toys.

Yup - nothing quite like it being pitch dark outside and hearing squeka
squeka squeaks - which is the sound that happens when Tsuki just stands
crunching on a squeaky toy. Tsuki likes to take his toys outside but only
brings them back in about half the time. Since I've been assuming racoon
and they can be dangerous to dogs I've been watching things. Not closely
enough, I guess. Tonight I'm moving laundry from the washer to the dryer
and I let the dogs out. I see Freeway dancing around with something big,
fluffy and grey in his mouth. Problem is I don't have any toys that big.
YIKES! But it doesn't seem to be struggling. I run down the stairs and
call Freeway. He comes running - without big grey fluffy thing.

So I call Tsuki, who apparently scoops up said big grey fluffy thing and
runs up the stairs into the laundry room with it. HEY! I tell him to
drop it and he promptly does. It is an opossum, maybe 10-12 pounds.
Fortunately neither dog is particularly interested in killing the thing
and its gone into its catatonic state "playing possum". So I get the dogs
to step over it back into the kitchen. Then I shut the door and shove the
possum outside. It didn't look particularly damaged.

They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum left within a
few minutes. I hope it stays away.

Heh, I read a post somewhere from a guy who had cats,
and their food was outside. His cats liked to sleep on
top of him/between his legs for some of the night, esp.
when it was very cold. They had a pet door, as I recall.

One night he woke up and a possum was there, too,
bedded down with the cats.

Links about halfway down this page for possum prep and
recipes:

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/martin/newsl...ipes/list.html

flick 100785

In article ,
Shelly & The Boys wrote:
In the seven years we've lived here, I've never seen an opossum. We have
raccoons. I'm not sure how factual this is, but my husband once
told me that usually where you have an abundance of one, you usually
won't have hardly of the other since they have similar living/hunting
areas.

We have both, and groundhogs. I don't know if it means
anything but we seem to have roadkill "seasons" where there
will be an abundance of possum roadkill for a month or so
and then an abundance of raccoon roadkill, etc.

I'm always boggled by "my dog caught a possum and it's just
fine" stories, but I'm really glad that I don't have to deal
with the dogs bringing live large critters into the house.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

wrote in message ...
They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum left within a
few minutes. I hope it stays away.

I realize that wild critters like to play as well, but find it infinitely
interesting
that they chose to play with squeaky toys! :-)
In the seven years we've lived here, I've never seen an opossum. We have
raccoons. I'm not sure how factual this is, but my husband once
told me that usually where you have an abundance of one, you usually
won't have hardly of the other since they have similar living/hunting
areas.
Shelly & The Boys

My neighborhood is brim full of feral cats. I am constantly on the list
from the animal shelter for a trap. I finally bought my own trap and just
take the trappings to the AS. Last year in two weeks, I caught 9 cats and
one possum. (This is a neighborhood, not the country).
This go round, I have set the trap out 3 nights, one night nothing, then a
possum and then an unaltered male cat.
It always surprises me when I walk out and check the trap and it's a possum.
You just don't think of them in the city.
Perry
"Melinda Shore" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Shelly & The Boys wrote:
In the seven years we've lived here, I've never seen an opossum. We have
raccoons. I'm not sure how factual this is, but my husband once
told me that usually where you have an abundance of one, you usually
won't have hardly of the other since they have similar living/hunting
areas.

We have both, and groundhogs. I don't know if it means
anything but we seem to have roadkill "seasons" where there
will be an abundance of possum roadkill for a month or so
and then an abundance of raccoon roadkill, etc.

I'm always boggled by "my dog caught a possum and it's just
fine" stories, but I'm really glad that I don't have to deal
with the dogs bringing live large critters into the house.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

From:
Date: 11/6/2004 1:42 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

Since about Sunday it
has been obvious that there was some kind of critter in my yard at night.
I've been assuming it was a racoon because it has been playing with
Tsuki's squeaky toys.

That's amazing!

They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum left within a
few minutes. I hope it stays away.


Our rescued Boxer, Beck and one of our fosters had this same experience. I
found them outside gleefully playing with a catatonic Opossum. It's amazing
that it wasn't dead, the way they were throwing it about.

Robin

Diane said in rec.pets.dogs.behavior:

They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum
left within a few minutes. I hope it stays away.

Where I train with my agility group, I've started seeing black
cats. Y'know, those black cats that have the white stripe
painted down their backs like in the Pepe Le Pew cartoons. I
hope they stay away, too.

--
--Matt. Rocky's a Dog.

Rocky wrote:
Diane said in rec.pets.dogs.behavior:


They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum
left within a few minutes. I hope it stays away.


Where I train with my agility group, I've started seeing black
cats. Y'know, those black cats that have the white stripe
painted down their backs like in the Pepe Le Pew cartoons. I
hope they stay away, too.


Okay, I'm really hesitant to type this because sure as I do, it'll
happen. But so far, though they are very common in this area, my dogs
have never tangled with one of those "black cats." Thank goodness!

On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 05:02:23 -0800 Shelly & The Boys whittled these words:

wrote in message ...
They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum left within a
few minutes. I hope it stays away.

I realize that wild critters like to play as well, but find it infinitely
interesting
that they chose to play with squeaky toys! :-)

So did I. With the first occurrence I thought maybe someone had tossed a
dog over my fence. But since it is a small yard and well fenced I knew
that no dog was going to simply disappear when I went out to check.
Racoon OTOH will squish themselves into impossible holes to hide.

In the seven years we've lived here, I've never seen an opossum. We have
raccoons. I'm not sure how factual this is, but my husband once
told me that usually where you have an abundance of one, you usually
won't have hardly of the other since they have similar living/hunting
areas.

Oh, no, we have both. And I'm right in the middle of a city. Raccoons are
more predatory so an opossum would to well to steer clear. It has been a
while but I've seen racoon in my yard, Oso and Tanith once trapped a half
grown one in a corner. No serious damage done, but in that case it was
because raccoons are good at defending themselves and Oso hadn't yet
gotten close enough to get a grip. No such luck for an opossum several
years ago.

Rccoons scream or yodel or - I don't quite know what to call the sound.
But I'd bet that a lot of barking dog complaints are actually raccoon
because they sound a lot like a dog in distress.

--
Diane Blackman
http://dog-play.com/
http://dogplay.com/Shop/

On 6 Nov 2004 16:21:48 GMT Rocky whittled these words:
Diane said in rec.pets.dogs.behavior:

They really seemed quite proud of themselves. THe opossum
left within a few minutes. I hope it stays away.

Where I train with my agility group, I've started seeing black
cats. Y'know, those black cats that have the white stripe
painted down their backs like in the Pepe Le Pew cartoons. I
hope they stay away, too.

Heh, we have those around too. Fortunately they rarely trouble themselves
to climb fences so I've never known one to come in my yard.

--
Diane Blackman
http://dog-play.com/
http://dogplay.com/Shop/