Flying Possums

Yes, that is right. I had an up close and personal encounter with a very scary looking possum (proper name is opposum, I believe). My friend had come over for a visit and we were sitting in the living room chatting when out of the corners of our eyes, we both saw something black and furry flying though the air right outside my front door. When I went out to investigate, I saw a large furry unknown animal being held hostage in Jade’s mouth. I was stunned and had no idea what to do. First of all, I had never seen anything like it and secondly, it was sort of hissing and baring really SHARP teeth. So, there I am yelling the command “drop it” at the top of my lungs. Of course, she did NOT obey and proceeded to fling it around in the air like it was a rag doll. Try to imagine me running around my front yard after Jade with a broom (all I could think of) trying to get her to drop the animal. Well, it is not like my neighbors think I am a little peculiar to begin with!

Eventually she drops it and I bring her in the house. Sure enough, when I looked outside a few moments later, the thing was gone. It was lying there “playing possum”. I thought it was dead! I think my friend was relieved that he did not have to help “dispose” of the animal.

Later on that evening, after my friend had left, I heard Jade and Jackson barking like mad. When I went outside, I discovered that the possum had returned and the dogs had him/her cornered in my front yard. It was hissing ferociously and baring its teeth again. So out I run again trying to round up the dogs and get them in the house before they get tore up by this animal. I was not very successful and it took forever to get them away from the possum and in the house. Before I managed to do that, Jade somehow managed to grab the possum in her mouth and ran INSIDE the house…..WITH the possum. I eventually got her to bring it back outside where I finally managed to wrestle her away. And there it was lying there after the whole ordeal, bloody and either dying or "playing dead" again . I was not sure what to do as it was 1am and all my neighbors were sound asleep. I watched it for a while - it was still breathing but was staying put. After some time, I decided to go to bed, assuming it would be gone by morning. Unfortunately, this was not the case and it was still in the front yard. My neighbor happened to be walking by as I was standing there trying to figure out what to do with it. He explained that the name of the animal in Spanish is "tlacuache" and he picked it up by it's tail and brought it to a nearby garbage pile for me.

After this experience, I found this photo on-line courtesy of www.aaanimalcontrol.com. Apparently, they have 50 sharp teeth! Luckily, the dogs managed to make it through the experience without any puncture wounds.



Any guesses as to what critter the dogs will find next?