Oh Dear, a possum!

[Tagg]

I think I mentioned recently that hubby saw a possum in the yard a little while ago. Well, tonight, so did the dogs. Rhi, the Belgian, looked at it and went about her business but Phoebe, westie, and Tinsel had to have a closer look. Hubby called them immediately and surprise, surprise, Phoebe came right in but Tinsel wanted to go nose to nose. Twice he went back to see what that thing was under the bird feeder and finally hubby had to herd him into the house. Of course the possum was seen before they had done what they were sent out to do. So, I spent a lot of time going back to the door to see if it had left, which it did once but changed it'a mind and returned, until finally I felt it was safe to try again. I expect that there will be two dogs out there tomorrow with their noses to the ground trying to figure out were the visitor went - probably to my barn! I expect that when the ground thaws I am going to have to move all the bird feeders out of the yard. Between Phoebe trying to inhale seeds and nuts and Tinsel wanting to "play possum" I will reluctantly have to move my daytime entertainment.

[JessicaR]

But mommy we thought you bought us a new toy!

My dogs got to go after a hen killing hawk last month, boy was they happy to chase that out of the yard, and of course they favorite is the squirrels, they love to try and catch those.

[dmeyer123]

We have so many opposums around here that I can't let my dogs out in the back yard after dark. We also have a big black cat living next door who loves to torment our dogs. He sits up on the block wall, even reaches down like he's going to bat at them. All the while the three dogs are acting like fools...jumping and barking their heads off.

I never worried about the opossums hurting the dogs. I thought they would just play dead or run away. But, my vet told me she's seen quite a few dogs pretty torn up by opposums that got cornered.

[scottanddeb]

The biggest problem regarding wild animals around here is trying to keep the pack (3 Tri's & a CHW) away from the Fisher living in a stonewall in the back corner of our lot.
I had seen the beast (about 36 - 40" long) a few times over the past few years while walking the dogs & when they tore after it, I ran them down screaming for them to stop. They all stopped in surprise (cause Daddy "never" acts that way & they knew it must be serious).
My wife hadn't seen the Fisher until this past year when she was bringing up the rear on our walk & commented "gee, did ya see that Otter just cross the road?". I explained the difference between an Otter & a Fisher -she still didn't get it -so I had her look it up on the Net -now she does.
I think the dogs now understand that that particular scent/animal is "bad" & decided they will leave "it" alone if the Fisher will leave us alone. I think it moved out of the wall after the time my wife saw it -it's still around, (I've seen it a coupla times since) but the burrow seems deserted (I used to see steam rising from it in the winter)

[Tagg]

My biggest concerns with Mr. Opossum is that they often carry scarcoptic mange, have some pretty nasty parasites and can make my horses ill. I have a good idea where it is living so I will have to live trap it and rehome it in the early Spring. It just sat there totally unconcerned that 2 dogs were sniffing it. I threw snowballs at it and it still just sat there. Seldom will a possum be able to do too much damage even though they have rows of teeth. A racccoon is a different story altogether. This looks like a yearling, not too big but can't stay around here. Now a fisher, eeks they can be really nasty and that's a big one you have there. Hope it decided to go elsewhere.

[Emmasmom]

We had a cat tangle with a weasel years ago - what a mess. I had a skunk in residence last year which I had trapped. Hope your possum moves on quickly.

[mellie]

We have porcupines in our neck of the woods, and we had a client bring in her JRT that had been quilled. It was awful !! Our surgeon removed over 200 quills from the face and nose and throat and the poor thing vomited quills for 2 days.This was this dogs SECOND attack. Once another client brought in a JRT that had attacked an otter in the water. The JRT was all chewed up from it and had quite a few sutures. Wicked little varmits...

[biowicks]

My Angel Pavi had excellent recall, so he was allowed to go outside by himself. We discovered one evening that he was having rendezvous with an opossum on a nightly basis. They would sniff noses and Pavi would wag his tail. Then, he'd come in. It was almost as though they were friends. However, and it's a big however, I'm certain that if he had been aggressive towards the opossum, bad things would have happened. We never did find out where the opossum hung out during the day, so we weren't able to rehome him. Our new girl, Olive, must always be on a leash when she's outside, so I don't expect any clandestine opossum meetings

[scottanddeb]

that's hilarious! Thanks for the story -we can learn a lot from our animal neighbors.

[scottanddeb]

Originally Posted by Tagg

My biggest concerns with Mr. Opossum is that they often carry scarcoptic mange, have some pretty nasty parasites and can make my horses ill. I have a good idea where it is living so I will have to live trap it and rehome it in the early Spring. It just sat there totally unconcerned that 2 dogs were sniffing it. I threw snowballs at it and it still just sat there. Seldom will a possum be able to do too much damage even though they have rows of teeth. A racccoon is a different story altogether. This looks like a yearling, not too big but can't stay around here. Now a fisher, eeks they can be really nasty and that's a big one you have there. Hope it decided to go elsewhere.

My wife didn't believe me when I told her just how nasty those critters can be. I had dealt with a Fisher back in 1977 when it got into the chickencoop & slaughtered 20 chickens & then wouldn't leave when we confronted it. Truly -a Fisher is the most dangerous animal in the woods around here, excluding a Black Bear mama protecting her cubs or a pack of Coyotes. Single coyotes are cowards & the bobcats want nothing to do with humans -the Fishers seem to have no fear of anything.