Gwen & the Opossum (or "Sandi you jinxed me!!!")

[Krista]

You just had to bring up opossums and I just had to reply saying Ms. Gwennie hadn't gotten any of those.  I should have said yet.....


So Gwennie is outside doing her thing, by herself around 9:45pm.  I have the windows shut and the a/c going, but I hear her begin to bark rather urgently.  The barking turns to incessant shrieking (yes, when she gets upset her bark sound like more of a high pitched, shrill shriek) before I can get out there to see what is the matter. 

I get out there to find an obviously injured, bloodied, hissing opossum wedged between the wall of my house and a work bench that we had sitting on the patio, just out of reach of the passionately barking Gwen.

I put Gwen in the house, but she keeps up the shrieking.  John wakes up and comes out to see what the heck was going on.  John decides that he has to put the opossum out of it's misery since it was not dead, but obviously quite hurt. I went inside to examine Gwen for injuries while he took care of that unpleasant task. 

Gwen had no visible injuries, so that is a relief.    I cleaned the area where the opossum bled as good as I could with oxyclean and then followed up this morning with some vinegar, but Gwennie is still obsessed with the spot.....

[beverly]

Wow Krista !!! I know how you guys felt -- went through that with my dogs in Missouri.  They had gotten an oppossom and it was a wild event.  Bev

[Krista]

Yes Bev, Gwennie is a bit of a huntress.  She has killed about 5 moles, 1 squirrel and at least 40 birds before this event.  She is one instinct-driven doglet.

I've got people at work that have asked to borrow her to rid their place of moles! LOL! 

[David C.]

Despite their attempts, Rudy, Max and even Rusty, all failed to bring down an warm blooded animal.

The mixed-dobie Scallywag where I used to work was quite the huntress.   She was still lethal past her 13th birthday, having brought down grounhogs, foxes, opossums, rats, mice and a few birds.  The only thing she couldn't hack were racoons.   One racoon made it inside the house.  She had it cornered, but couldn't take it down, and the racoon couldn't escape.  It was a Mexican stand-off.

One morning she brought in an opossum for us.  We used to have this foreman, who I used to describe as "the kind of girl you'd want to bring to a bar brawl".  She was that tough.   When Scally brought in the dead opossum, she began to shriek "eewww, eewww, eewww, eewww..get that away from me".   We thought that was really funny.

[Sandishooligans]

Oh dear me!  I feel your pain, Krista.  Now you have your very own Possum Corner.  The Hooligans always run to one corner of the yard where they are sure possums will fall from heaven.  Glad Gwennie wasn't hurt.  Fortunately for my girls, they've never been bitten or even hissed at.  Maybe the first snow will cover up the scent.  Sorry to jinx you.

[Teresa]

Krista, There's a little place, a guess it could be a town, in South Carolina called Possum Kingdom. Bet Gwennie would love to live there!!!