Beasties in the Night

3 am and I was still awake…the result of surging adrenaline earlier when I let the dogs out one final time before bed.  It was later than usual, 11:30 p.m. when two of the pups came running back to the house…the wirehair dachshund and the ridgeback (not so fierce in the face of danger, after all…).   The American Staffordshire, Hazel, and Felix, the cocker-dock rescue, didn’t come back in with the other two and still didn’t come when called.  (Hmmmm….some remedial training would be occurring later for them!)  In my jammies and socks I trudged out to the totally darkened shed where they were carrying on, barking wildly.  I couldn’t tell what they were all spooled up about in the dark, so back into the house I went for the flashlight.  When I returned with the light, I saw wedged between the wooden privacy fence and the old pine tree, a very frightened and cornered possum.  Now, Hazel, the Amstaf, really doesn’t give up very easily, and Felix, the rescue, was truly just along for the ride.  Banging on the tree trunk with a shovel, I got Hazel’s attention (which was necessary, given her heightened excitement and determination at “saving” me from the possum) and reached around the chicken wire laid for my new chicken pen (yep, that’s right, I’ve got a possum living in the tree that corners my soon to be chicken coop and pen…) and grabbed Hazel by the collar.  She gave up!  And, Felix followed silently.  I put them both in the house and then returned to make sure the possum hadn’t been injured.  It is always amazing to me when a possum “plays possum”…what a dumb thing to do!  There it was where I had left it, playing dead, perfectly fine…no blood, thank goodness!  I put away the shovel, picked up the flashlight and left it there in the wedge of fence and tree to decide when it was safe to resume it’s nightly adventures.  Or maybe it would just head back up the tree and call it a night.