Caught an Intruder last night!

Woke up last night about 4 am to my very big dog, Jack, on the attack. He was barking, growling and having a fight with someone or something.

He actually woke up everybody in the house. I told my wife and kids to go in the back room and be quite and I jumped out of bed to find out what was going on. I kept the lights off so that I wouldn't let the intruder know where I was.

I could see my 150 lb Rotti chasing around the yard barking and growling.

Finally At the very end of our yard (1/2 acre), Behind the big tree and bushes, all the chasing stopped. Not sure if the intruder had jumped back over the fence, I ventured down in my boxers, flip flops and carrying my baseball bat to see what was going on.

Now, you have to get the picture..... It was very quite out last night, there was no noise from the wind and it was kinda dark out.

So all I could hear was my dog making alot of noise in the area of the yard where we dump all our leaves. There was alot of crackling and rustling going on.

Finally got down there to the corner of my yard, under the very big tree, and there was absolutely no light. I could not see anything. I could just hear Jack fighting with something.

So I ran back up to the house and got the keys for the truck. Drove it down to where Jack was and put the lights on the area where the noise was coming from.

What I was imagining to see was some poor soul bleeding to death from being attacked by my dog and wondering how to explain it.

And what did I see?

Much to my relief it was not a human.

I saw my Dog, Jack and our cat, standing over a Opossum or Tlacuache admiring their kill.

You can not imagine how I felt. A liitle bit better after 10 minutes of intensive dog fighting.

Went back up to the house and told my wife and kids what had happened. They were very relieved.

Feel sorry for the Tlacuache.

Also, kinda glad it was not a human. Hate to see what Jack would have done to someone coming in our yard at 4 am in the morning.

Have a great and safe day.

Big Daddy

Great story BD, and a scary night! Glad it was only a possum.

Hey BD, I have 3 of them things at my new house. Will you loan out your Rotti for a fee? Vela's little chocolate lab isn't up to the task.

Big Daddy writes:

"...I ventured down in my boxers, flip flops and carrying my baseball bat to see what was going on...."

Now I get it. That possum had a massive heart attack from abject fear when he, in the pre-dawn darkness, saw what appeared to be the night manager at the Journey´s End Mobile Home Park and Rest Resort for GOBs (Good Ole Boys) in McComb, Mississippi approaching looking like an ogre in those boxers and a baseball cap reading "NO FEAR" and suddenly found himself up against an unscalable fence where he had been harassing the dawg just for the entertainment value of it. Hell, anybody living within 100 miles of McComb knows you never want to stand your ground with the night manager at a trailer park in McComb, especially if you make good eatin´ like an unfortunate possum wandering in from the piney woods seeking left over chitterlings from last night´s community BBQ.

Can we look forward to something like....

Big Daddy's McComb Style 'Possum Meatballs???

ja ja ja, as a country girl, i get the whole picture

Possums may look unimpressive....but if you've ever been eye to eye with one hissing at you...they look like a furry aligator! DAMN! They've got a LOT of teeth!!!! Good dog!!!

Not only that they make a God awful sound that will s scare the holyq begeezus out of you.

I live trap them in my barn and escort them to the National Forest. The old battle scarred boars are UGLY!!!!

My 18 pound Feist goes crazy whenever one gets under the deck... he yells hysterically..but is NEVER brave (or stupid) enough to actually take one on.
And I'm very glad. Vet bills up here are outrageous.

as a horse person, they spell bad news for us. they carry a fatal neurological disease for horses.

Yup...EPM. Even if they survive it...they are usually not ridable. Much rather get rid of the possums!

kipissippi wrote:I live trap them in my barn and escort them to the National Forest. The old battle scarred boars are UGLY!!!!

My 18 pound Feist goes crazy whenever one gets under the deck... he yells hysterically..but is NEVER brave (or stupid) enough to actually take one on.
And I'm very glad. Vet bills up here are outrageous.

Aunt Kissi, It is Illegal in Mexico to kill the "Critters". however, I can't believe Big Daddy didn't invite us over for critter stew.....LMAO

I'm a wuss I know...but I can't kill anything..... well the occassional brown recluse does "get the hammer" but that's about it.

Jim W wrote:

kipissippi wrote:I live trap them in my barn and escort them to the National Forest. The old battle scarred boars are UGLY!!!!

My 18 pound Feist goes crazy whenever one gets under the deck... he yells hysterically..but is NEVER brave (or stupid) enough to actually take one on.
And I'm very glad. Vet bills up here are outrageous.

Aunt Kissi, It is Illegal in Mexico to kill the "Critters". however, I can't believe Big Daddy didn't invite us over for critter stew.....LMAO

My 18lb poodle has killed 2 of them in the past couple of months. He is quite ferocious when he goes in for the kill.

I guess he doesn't know the law.

BE CAREFUL!!
Most dead possums are just playing possum.

There used to be a poster on one of the boards around here, named Pogo???

slainte39 wrote:BE CAREFUL!!
Most dead possums are just playing possum.

There used to be a poster on one of the boards around here, named Pogo???

I finish them off with a shovel just to be sure.

We have arrived after a long harrowing ferry trip involving water
coming in the portholes. Its midnight and we find our driver and
prepare to go over the mountain to Calibiche on the island of
Dominica. We are in the middle of nowhere when the driver speeds
up and yells manatou (spelled it like it sounded) and procedes to
hit it with the van and than backup over it. He stops the car and
throws it into the back seat with me. I suddenly understand Manatou
is possum and I am sitting with it in a dark back seat with my latest
dead friend or at least I hope it is dead. Well an hour or so later we
stop at the drivers house and he gives it to his grandma and boy was
she excited to make manatou stew. I am very glad the possum was
not playing possum and my wife was greatful to be in the front seat.

Z

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

A true story told without embellishment.

In the 1980s, we lived in a beach cottage on a cliff in a semi-rural coastal area south of San Francisco just south of a rugged mountainous coastal cliff zone known as Devil´s Slide. The area is characterized by sheer cliffs overlooking the wild Pacific Ocean which, on this part of the California coast means it is an often foggy land known for its brisk climate, especially in the summer when the bracing coastal fogs roll in and even on crystal clear days the air is cool and refreshing. The climate there along the sea is so brisk that it is not particularly inviting to flying insect pests so there is no need for screens on windows or doors. We had no screens on any of our windows and always slept with all windows open for the cool (some would say cold) breezes and the mesmerizing sounds of the waves crashing against the rocks below. An enchanting place except for the relentless fog that often plagued us in certain summer months.

One night, as we slept with all the windows open as usual, my wife awoke at about 2:00AM and realized, despite the haze of having just awakened in the pre-dawn darkness, that there was a creature in bed with us. She threw back the covers and there was a possum lying next to us either asleep or playing possum. This dude had abviously simply crawled through a bedroom window and joined us in the double bed we shared where he proceeded to grab a snooze.

Well, and I am not making this up; my wife jumped up, grabbed that possum by its tail, wound it around her head a couple of times and tossed it out the window and onto the cliffside trail below our house winding along the precipice fronting the ocean. As it happens, we had a lot of wildlife that frequented our property and adjacent properties where they scavenged for food in garbage containers. These small animals were mostly possums, raccoons and skunks to the best of our knowledge but, no doubt included all sorts of night hunting creatures.

After that our possum friend showed up occasionally and never really threatened us or crawled into our bed again - thank God - as Dawg would have freaked. I guess he was playing possum that night for which I am eternally grateful.

Did he make any noise?....like

Love the possum stories. Reminds me of a friend in California who does possum rescues. They get smacked by cars and bikes, attacked by dogs and, sometimes, beaten with shovels. The survivors wind up in animal shelters. But, while there are many people actively involved in rescuing cats and dogs, nobody wants something as ugly as a possum running around the house. So my friend took it upon herself to do the dirty job of rescuing possums, nursing them back to good health and replacing them back to the wild. She says she came to realize that possums are the sweetest, snugliest, most tame and docile pets she ever had.

Yes, oh so true many moons ago much to my surprise and angst my adventuresome sweet daughter came in from playing the back forty. In all her glory, skinned knees and muddy clothing, she and the overly plump carrot top kid brought mom and I not one but two of the smallest, ugliest little buggers I have ever seen. Once you have bottle Fed and cared for the marsupials you never see them as a pesky critter.

I never see any animals as pesky, gross, scary, ugly, etc. They're all just little critters trying to live their lives. And avoid us.

slainte39 wrote:Did he make any noise?....like

We heard nothing as the surf was so incessantly loud there we would not have heard possum snoring. This possum kept returning to our bedroom after that but never again crawled into bed with us. Eventually we discovered that she was entering our bedroom through a hole in the floor under the bathtub where we had a rotten floor we were repairing. One day she was run over by a car on a nearby busy highway and died which was a sad occasion as we had become a bit attached to the ugly little bugger.

That recollection about the rotting bathroom floor reminds me that that ocean front house was an old shack we refurbished in the 80s built in the 1920s on a small lot adjacent to many other lots along a spectacular ocean front area on a marine sanctuary known as the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve which was noted for its incredible tide pools and marine life. Those lots were developed back in the early 20th Century and given away free to anyone who subscribed to The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper when that area along Devil´s Slide and south to Half Moon Bay was , while near the big city, isolated by poor roads, rugged terrain and the type of foggy, marine climate for which nearby San Francisco oceanfront neighborhoods are infamous. Over many years, these lots, intended as weekend retreats for Chronicle subscribers, became more and more valuable as they straddled the jewel of that marine reserve. Today, those modest houses on 25 feet of oceanfront are extremely valuable and nearly impossible to come by. Too bad we sold in the 80s for a pittance after refurbishing that place. We wanted to move to a sunny inland environment and ignored the admonition to never sell oceanfront property. We weren´t even half as smart in the 80s as we are now. Sigh!