The Great Possum Purge: When My Dog Brought Home a "Gift" (AKA my night flipped sideways)
Note: I had no idea when I decided to write this possum story that my normal publishing date of Thursday would be the 6th anniversary of the "memorable" event. Welcome to an "O for Others" HOP Story!
It was June 19th, 2019, sometime after nine at night, and I was utterly exhausted. Jon was out of town on a work trip in California. Zenya, a spirited three-year-old, was tucked away in bed. My loyal canine companions, Fay and Iggy, were outside with me for their last potty break, and Squiggles the cat was somewhere inside, almost certainly napping. I just wanted to get my dogs back in, lock up, and finally collapse. Fat chance.
See, once we moved to Wisconsin, Fay, our Klee Kai, developed a... hobby. A taste for hunting. Our Texas home had featured a tiny, fenced-in backyard with no hiding spots for wildlife. Wisconsin, however, presented a buffet of options. Our sprawling yard boasted a double-decker deck, ending at a large above-ground pool and a connected side deck with a perpetually broken hot tub. Beneath this vast wooden structure, a whole community of critters thrived: rabbits, groundhogs, and, yes, opossums (the scientific name has the “o”).
Fay embraced her new calling with alarming enthusiasm. It got so bad, we often had to leash her for evening bathroom breaks just to stop her from diving under the hot tub, hoping for prey. (Oh, it happened. We had to dig her out once. She emerged so caked in mud, her white and grey fur looked decidedly brown.)
The "Gift" That Kept on Giving
That particular night, I thought, Surely, Fay will just do her business.
Wishful thinking.
The moment her paws hit the grass, she was off, a blur of fluff, nose to the ground, tracking. Before I even registered what was happening, she streaked past me, something clutched firmly in her mouth. She was shaking it, throwing it, catching it again. My mind raced: Please be a ball. An old rope toy. Anything.
As I moved toward her, she darted by, and in the dim light, I saw the distinctive tail. I knew exactly what she was about to do. I practically begged her to "come," but she shot up the deck stairs and vanished into the house. I followed her inside, with Oblivious Iggy in tow.
Fay had dropped her kill in the middle of our carpeted living room. Sure enough, it was a small possum, covered in blood. Fay sniffed her trophy, then, her task accomplished, simply walked away.
Now, I was familiar with the term "playing possum." I had NO IDEA, however, of the true physiological capabilities of such a bizarre-looking animal. Fay was the smartest dog I’d ever owned, let alone trained (you can read about my triumphs and tribulations in dog training here), and she had deemed this creature deceased. So, naturally, I did too. It was covered in blood!
The game was over. I left the living room to grab a grocery bag, intending to scoop up the poor thing and figure out its final resting place.
When I returned… it was gone.
Fay was pacing in a frantic circle by the couch. Even Iggy looked alert. I couldn't believe it. Possums are genuinely amazing. When truly terrified, they enter an involuntary, semi-comatose state known as tonic immobility. Their breathing and heart rate drop dramatically, they become stiff, their mouths might hang open with saliva, and they even emit a foul-smelling liquid to truly sell the "rotting corpse" illusion.
Although I now have a deep respect for these animals, I wasn’t impressed at the time. I was pissed. I had a LIVE possum hiding somewhere IN my couch, and I had no clue how to get it out.
Operation Possum Extraction
I put my dogs away, donned a garden glove, and began flipping my couch. Every moment, I wished Jon was there. Not that he’s braver than me when it comes to wild animals (he bolts at the sight of cicadas), but he definitely could have helped me maneuver the heavy furniture. When I called him, his advice was simple: angle the couch toward the back door and leave the door open. I'd already thought of this, so we were sure it would work. A gentle shake of the couch, and the possum would tumble out of its fabric labyrinth, scurrying straight to freedom. This was the plan. This was the goal. The dream.
Well, after shaking the couch with progressively increasing vigor until I wondered if I'd crack the frame, that hope went up in flames. The possum refused to budge. Alright, fine. I’d reach under there with my gloved hand, grab him, and we’d be back on track. Except, when I reached, scared as he was, he crawled deeper into the couch, leaving only the tip of his tail visible. I remember taking breaks. I remember cussing. A lot. And thinking at the same time.
Eventually, I tried the shaking tactic again. This time, maybe he was tired? He fell out. He ran toward the backdoor. SO CLOSE! We can do this! The time is now! Only… he ran straight past the door and hid under the breakfast table. My cat, Squiggles, sat on a nearby chair, sound asleep, giving exactly zero cares. Any thought of her chasing him out the back door remained just that: a thought. Tired and utterly frustrated, I grabbed my phone and videoed what happened next. Yes, I have proof, a video of the possum playing hide-and-seek with my sanity:
This was not the quiet night I had pictured with Jon gone and Zenya asleep. This was hell in a handbasket. I had to shift the entire couch, shoving it all the way flush against the back door. Shake. Shake. Finally, he was free. I took another video:
Lessons from a Resilient Rodent
All in all, it was well past 1 AM before I could finally go to bed. I had to drag my living room furniture back into some semblance of normalcy, clean the foul-smelling carpet, and then bathe my double-coated dog, whose hunting exploits had left her less-than-pristine.
Fay is no longer with us, and while I miss her fiercely, I've grown in my appreciation for Iggy's quirks – like getting lost in the hallway – precisely because he has no desire to hunt or drag anything into the house.
One thing I learned from that long, chaotic night is simple: you can't control what happens. You can only keep going and do your best. As angry as I was at the incident, I’m glad the only "death" that happened that night was a very convincing performance by a cute little possum who was just trying to live his life, too.