Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Killer

Last night was pretty eventful. I let the dogs out before going to bed. I headed upstairs and Chris stayed behind to shut off the lights and make sure the doors were all locked. As I was brushing my teeth, Chris called up to me and told me to get downstairs right away. I hurried down and turned the corner. Laying in the middle of the living room floor was a possum. Apparently, Montana had brought it in with her and I had failed to notice. After I went upstairs, she brought it over to Chris and dropped it by him. He thought it was one of their toys. He was wrong.

An actual photo of the killer dog:

Vicious, eh?

So, it was still alive. It was breathing and "playing possum". Chris and I discussed what we should do. The dogs all circled the poor animal, like hyenas circling their prey. Chris decided to get a shovel from the basement, scoop it up, and take it back outside. My job was to hold the door.

We then vacuumed everywhere Montana had been, just in case the thing had fleas. I noticed a few drops of blood, cleaned those up with Clorox wipes, and sprayed Lysol over the whole carpet. I put Montana's bed in the washer since she had taken it there.

Chris left for work this morning and called to report it was gone. I was pleased. J had a playdate at the park today, so I went out to load up the van with all the junk required to take two kids to the park for a few hours. That's when I saw the possum. It was laying by our hedges. It lifted its head up, wobbled it around a bit, and then laid it back down. Flies were buzzing around it. It was injured and bleeding. I knew I couldn't leave the poor thing to suffer. So, I called Animal Control and was told that they "don't do wild animals". I called a Wildlife Rescue place that is no longer in operation and was given the name of a pest control place. I called them. The guy told me he could take care of it for 50 bucks. I didn't want the poor thing "taken care of". So, I called out vet. They told me to bring it in and their wildlife expert would take care of it. Take care of it, as in try to rehabilitate it or euthanize it if its injuries were too severe.

I called my mom to come watch the kids, canceled our playdate, and once Grandma got here, I had to get the thing captured. It has since then crawled back under the hedges. I took an old towel and a pair of heavy duty work gloves outside. I was able to pull it out from under the hedges. It "played possum" again. I cleaned the leaves off of it shooed the flies away, and wrapped it in a towel. I then put the possum in one of our cat carriers and headed to the vet.

I had to fill out a form and I left the possum there. They will take a look at it, see if it can be saved, and then go from there. With luck, it will be okay and will be released back into the wild.

I still have the heebie-jeebies after having a possum in my house. And that my dog had it in her mouth. Montana has never done anything like that before. You can be sure that I will be looking at my dogs' mouths from now on when they come inside.


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