Something happened a couple of weeks ago that was so disturbing, so sleep-stealing and appetite-killing, that I couldn’t even post about it because I was too busy trying to bleach my mind’s eye and ear and forget this incident ever went down. I recognize now that that outcome will never occur so I may as well talk about it, in order to spread the word as a public service to the innocent possum community: for the love of God, don’t come through my backyard. It is not safe for you here.
Remember last year when Digger (PBUH) so arrogantly maimed but refused to kill that one possum interloper and I had to smash its possum head? And how I wondered then whether there was a possum highway along my back fence and if it was going to be a constant bloodbath in my yard?
Nothing happened after that for a long time because (1) Digger died and (2) Sunny is spectacularly lazy and (3) apparently the possums are seasonal, which is why even though Maggie came to live here months ago, she never killed any. Until lately.
Right around when the weather started turning warm, I noticed that whenever I let Maggie out at dusk or later, she lost her damn mind and would charge aggressively toward the back fence and then try to kill the entire fence. Whining and barking and pacing, she would fixate on it, glaring up at the top of the fence and occasionally exploding into murderous barking rage, leading into another round of psychotic fence-attacking.
I knew what it had to be: possums. To confirm my suspicions, I started keeping a flashlight out there and when Maggie freaked, I’d check the top of the fence, and sure enough, there they were. Sometimes they’d freeze, other times they’d keep running, but never did they fall.
I made Maggie stop fixating because that’s what Cesar Milan says to do. But she got away from my attention sometimes and fixated her ass off.
I was out on the patio with her one night a few weeks ago, surfing the web on my laptop as she performed her hysterical death vigil behind me and I ignored her because I was fixated on catching up on emails. I could hear her panting and grunting and dragging her claws up on the fence.
And then suddenly the strangest sounds: a muffled squeal quickly followed by a distinct crunch.
It was exactly what you imagine a possum falling into the open waiting mouth of a predatory psychopath would sound like. As I grabbed the flashlight and started running over to where Maggie was, I heard more…sounds.
Crunch-slurp-gobble-crunch-crunch-gobble.
I should have stopped and immediately removed myself from the scene, but I didn’t. It was like a horror movie where the dumbass just HAS to go check out what that spooky sound is downstairs. I shined (shone?) the light on the ground in front of her and what I saw made me shriek a little, which made Maggie grumble wetly through all the blood and look up at me with actual possum guts dangling from her chin. Actual. Possum. Guts. All that was left on the ground was a possum head and a possum butt with its creepy possum tail.
Aaaaaand that’s when I turned into that version of myself that I don’t like very much: a whiny little titty baby. Choking back tears and vomit, I ran inside. Rupert was still here since it was a few days before his dad got hurt, and he was already in bed but not asleep so I barged breathlessly into the bedroom and whispered in that way that really isn’t a whisper, more like a ragged gasp: “Possum! Maggie! Eating it! Covered in blood! Haaalp!”
I wonder what it’s like to be The Man in a household. I think it might suck.
Rupert put on some pants, sighed sternly, and marched out to the back yard ahead of me. First thing he did was stomp over to Maggie where she was still gobbling up little bits of possum parts and snorfling the ground to make sure she got every last drop of sweet possum blood.
He instructed her to move her ass, which she did not, so he literally picked her up by her scruff and set her down in front of me. That can’t have been good for his neck.
(It was good for my ovaries though. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. My man was just fresh off a few months of Army life as an officer and had grown accustomed again to issuing orders and being all decisive and fearless. It’s totally hot.)
He ordered me – in the tone I like to fantasize about him using on worthless maggot grunts, rowr – to get. control. of. that. bitch.
I got control of that bitch while he went inside and got plastic grocery bags for the possum’s eternal resting place. Well, its head and tail anyway. And a little pile of intestines – I guess Maggie’s palate is too refined for that stuff. She prefers straight-up blood and vital organs.
I tried not to cry during all this. Come on, it was GROSS. The crunching, people! Nightmare fodder. And to really make the whole experience complete and fulfilling on a deep personal level, when we turned our attention to our sweet little Flesh-Eater to see if we needed to clean away any possum guts before letting her back inside, um yeah. There were issues. Her entire “bib” area, which is normally white, was a nice bright pink. Blood was smeared all over her snout and even a little on top of her head. Paws, too. It was a foul mess. I hosed her down and then hosed myself down because GROSS.
There have been no further incidents, because Maggie got the message that night that Rupert and I were NONE TOO PLEASED with the possum-murder. I know dogs are natural hunters and carnivores, and I respect that. But she lives in our house. I don’t want to have to clean possum guts off her before she can come inside every night.
And I do feel a little bad about it because I know how much pleasure it gives her, and for her whole life until coming to live with me, she was encouraged to kill critters (my parents have a few acres and she kept the varmints out of Dad’s garden). And now she can’t, and that is sad. But still, living here, she can’t have the idea that it’s okay to attack and devour any small animal she sees. We have to walk through the neighborhood after all, and there are cats and small dogs everywhere. I don’t want some pissed-off cat person chasing me down after seeing Maggie disembowel little Mufflepuffins right there on the sidewalk.
Anyway. I was so disturbed by this event that I wrote to , my own personal dog authority, told her what happened, and asked her if this means Maggie is psychotic and eeeeevil. She assured me it does not, and all the research I’ve done since then proves her right. Nonetheless. It was a horrible thing to witness, my sweet well-mixed herder going completely medieval like that with all the crunching and gobbling and slurping. Unholy.
I felt better after she let me put suede halter tops on her head.
When you own cats you tend to be more used to the indiscriminate slaughter of small animals… although I’m not sure that its better or worse that my cat never eats them, just ‘plays’ with it until it has a heart attack. At least its cleaner.
This was the most suspenseful story I’ve ever read. I had to go all the way to the end to figure out the suede halter top connection!
Who’s a good dog? MAGGIE’S a gooood doggins. Fine little girl! [watch out for all the teeth, though; they hurtz.]
PS: did you know that possums have more teeth than any other mammal in North America? 52.
Only trouble with that, Rachel, is rather than looking chastened by it, she looks quite pleased…
Lol.
I’m going to have to find out what a possum here looks like and how it manages to be potential dog chow – Im having visions of the australian ringtail possums I grew up with.
I would have reacted the same way you did, barely suppressing my revulsion. I can watch all manner of horror movies when they’re on TV and don’t seem real, but real life animal ickiness slays me – totally.
I have to say though, your storytelling abilities had me laughing in parts, despite the squeamish nature of the story.
Maggie still looks adorable and like she wouldn’t harm a fly when you take pictures of her. She’s clearly a paradox.
I get it Rachel. I was awakened this past Sunday morning to the sound of my sweet little puddy tat crunching the shit out of a mouse (or maybe a bird, there wasn’t much left) in my hallway by my bedroom. Disgusting!! I mean, I’m used to them bringing in their “gifts” (we have a cat door), but to hear the crunching of the bones is quite off-putting.
My poor babysitter had to get rid of a mouse head and butt while we were gone this past week. I love her!!
We owned a Maine Coon female cat for 21 years. Ursula was her name. In the summer she liked to sleep in the sun on the picnic table in the backyard. The Bluejays hated her and would divebomb her repeatedly, squawking and protesting her presence. She would act like she was asleep, until one came too close. Then, like King Kong on top of the Empire State Building, she’d snatch it out of the air and proceed to eat the whole thing except for the feathers, beak, and legs. God, I loved that cat.
Pete – Mine is a Maine Coon too… they are damn fine hunters (and smart too). Only wish they could turn it off sometimes :)
Rachel owns suede halter tops????
I had Great Dane run down a rabbit ( it zigged when it should have zagged).
Nothing left. Nothing. In the time it took me to get to other side of the yard the 140lb dog was looking very happy, wagging it’s tail, and licking it’s chops free of what looked suspiciously like an ear fragment. ” Hey Boss, send another.”
Makes you realize when you play wrestle with large doggy that doggy is, in fact, playing. And could bite your forearm into dust in about the time it takes for me to hit post.
That was incredibly funny. I laughed so much that I actually snorted. BTW, does that make me a bad person? Probably. Also, my dear husband is incredibly intrigued by dear Wachel in a suede halter. I guess he is a bad person too.Oh, well. Maggie does look mightily cute in said halter top.
Maggie my dear, you’re a herder.
Don’t let your inner terrier come out. Think how hard mommy would laugh if you would gather all those little possums into a possum herd (Or whatever the name is for a gathering of possums.)
Your dog is so cute!! I love the second picture. So darling.
Kang’s killed three rabbits, two birds, a packrat, and now two squirrels. I had to take the latest goddamn squirrel away from her yesterday, no simple task. She knows we’re not pleased, but she doesn’t care- she is a Self-Actualized Dog when she’s killing a critter and clearly pleased down to the tips of her paws no matter what we think.
Fortunately, Akitas are self-cleaning. She’s always groomed off her own blood and guts before we could even get to her.
I had to remove a dead mouse from my house last night that one of the cats brought in. She hadn’t eaten it but it looked awfully flat…like she’d sucked it insides out or something. I don’t even want to know.
I’ve also found…I would like to say birds…but in reality it’s just the remnants of birds. The top of the skull, the beak, the wings and one leg. It’s hideous.
The worst thing is then they come up snuggling up to you all cute and adorable like you convince yourself they are all the time. But they’re not…they’re little murderers. It’s natural behaviour and all that, I know, but it’s still a bit eeeeevil.
Jodie 73 – I hear where you’re coming from. My cute, snuggly kitties have been known to take down a pheasant in the front yard. We constantly have the remnants of mice, birds and rabbits mostly on the sidewalk, but too often for my taste, in the living room. I often tell my husband that I married him for the sole reason of going on “gut duty”. Again, I have to reiterate how much I love my babysitter/housesitter. She actually removes the remains. Worth every dime.
That was a most excellent story Rachel, Maggie should come up and hang with my dog; when he picks up the red squirrels that I shoot around the house, he catches them on the first bounce and then gently carries them to the edge of the yard and digs a shallow grave for them, drops their lifeless bodies into it and then covers them up with dirt before going off to find more in the tree tops. Nice and tidy!
On a more serious note, be aware of the rabies carrying potential of opossums for your own safety as well as Maggie and Sunny’s.Infected ‘possum blood might transmit the virus if you come into contact with it. Be careful. I tend to shoot the racoons brave enough to come onto my property in order to protect my dog and family as rabies is fairly common around my area.
My son protests “this is sexist!” when he is awoken in the middle of the night to remove partially dead critters that the cats have offered up to us gods. I can only reply that it’s not my fault nature made him so strong and brave. Whereupon he snorts and says he doesn’t really mind.
Also, one time I found a black desicated rat on the floor of my bedroom. I think the dog kept it outside as a plaything for quite some time before bringing it in. Ewwww.
Maggie does look inordinately pleased with herself, and why shouldn’t she. The cutest little pup still has the heart of a wolf beating inside. I, like other commenters, was more intrigued by the suede halter top… it do present mind-bogglin’ probabilities… ;)
Oh, I forgot (mind wandering in suede, I guess), ditto on getting the pup(s) checked for rabies… I’m just sayin’.
…Out of everything Kang’s killed, I was responsible for the cleanup for more than half. Apparently, being willing to dissect dead animals forfeits your sex role.
From predatory psychopath to Mother Teresa in a suede habit. Seriously, in that second picture Maggie’s off to feed the poor, tend the sick and read to the blind. (All of whom may want to keep a firm grip on their internal organs).
Girl — suede halter tops? Plural? Aren’t you the little vixen. : )
It is kind of interesting that our most beloved animals are bloodthirsty predators with sharp fangs and claws. Dogs and cats are far more popular than rabbits and hamsters.
If humans had existed back in the Cretaceous period they probably would have kept the smaller carnivorous dinosaurs as pets.
By and large, I think cat owners are more likely to encourage predatory behavior in their animal companions. Particularly if the prey animals (mice and rats) are inside the house. Then it’s “You go girl! Go get ’em! KILL!”
I’m like that with spiders and centipedes as well. But I’ve found that only younger cats and kittens are interested in them. Older cats will just lay there and watch them run by. I guess they’ve probably learned that they don’t taste all that good.
Oh, I love the picture. It reminds me of the final scene in Psycho.
“I couldn’t hurt a fly!”
You know how much luv I haz for ya, Rchl.
Empathy, though, not as much as I should : )
I’m a country gal. Let’s just say I field dress, gut and skin (pluck) my dinner after I shoot it –domestic and wild. Or after my kids, hubby or the neighbors shoot it. I haz skills.
What I REALLY hate, however, is when my Punkin and the Fat Dog get into a porcupine. Pulling out quills sucks!
So, a cautionary tale — sweet little Maggie enjoys seeing you freak!
I understand completely, my Dobie (Magnus) got hold of a mouse the other night and before I could even say a word, there was really nothing left of it (it’s a mouse + Doberman = appetizer). This made my wife a little ill, but instilled a little pride knowing there is still a bit o’ predator in the boy.
I had a lab-mix named Torri. She had to stay with my sister in the country while I traveled on business. My sister said a possum wasn’t safe within 5 miles of her house. Torri only went after possums, nothing else.
I once came home to a wife who was very distraught because one of our dogs had “murdered, Murdered!” a female quail. The male had been wandering around the backyard – apparently heart broken – looking for his lost love or trying to join her in the afterlife. My wife was near tears at the tragedy of it all (“They mate for life!”).
It was really, REALLY hard not to laugh.
Once I left my two dogs with a friend of my Dad’s in Northern California when down in SF. He had several acres and was troubled by gophers. Two days after I picked up Major and Katie and went back home, he called and said he hadn’t seen any sign of gophers in weeks and wanted me to pass along his appreciation to the dogs.
Up until now I had always assumed that the dogs merely spoke sternly to the gophers and convinced them to move elsewhere, perhaps chipping in to help with bus fare. But I’ve had other, darker suspicions…
Obviously Maggie is traumatized by the halter top and will never, ever… huh? Suede halter top? Uh, not Rupert’s, by any chance, is it?
No, if the mice are still alive and don’t have too many puncture marks, I will actually catch them and put them outside. (I’m not one of those stand-on-a-chair-and-scream girly-girls, I’ll have you know.)
Although, I am talking about random ones the cats bring inside. If I had a family of mice breeding in my house somewhere, yeah it would probably be “KILL!…just outside and not on your mother’s new carpet”
Not a chair-percher, perhaps, but you sure seem to be one of those girly-girl “aww, they’re so Mickey darling cute I just gotta give them a hopeychange.” For the love of god why let them go? They’re disgusting, disease carrying vermin. If they are still alive, STOMP THEM! That’s what Stanley Steemer is for.
14K: But they’re soooo cuuuute!
Okay yes, I’m bit of a girly-girl.
And STOMP THEM? I can’t even whack a spider with rolled up newspaper. I have to spray them from about half a room away with an evacuation plan in case the spider somehow develops the ability to fly across the room and land in my hair.
Oh crap, I’m a LOT of a girly-girl.
My work here is done. That will be $250 for the first minute, and an additional $14.95 per minute that I have to talk you through the delicate art of spider eradication.
BTB — not that there’s anything wrong with that … revel in your girly-hood, Mz Jodie!
14K: Thanks for the offer but I can deal with the spiders. I just apologise to them a lot while they’re dying after being hit with half a can of insect spray.
I can admit that now I’ve confessed to my girly-girlness. I feel so free.
I figure it is the possum or the cats and chickens. I have an iron bar and hammer handy, to stun the stray possum squatting in a chicken nest, and a 30inch ‘possum tong’ I welded up. Stun; drag outside; finish. I flip the carcass over a nearby bank, and anything that wants a nibble can do so out of my sight.
I imagine possums eat lots of mice and bugs. So do snakes, but snakes eat fewer chickens. I will chance losing any possums about the buildings, not to mention the possum fever they carry to equines.
Go Maggie! Or maybe put possum traps on your back fence.
jodie73 & 14 karat:
OK.
I used to kill spiders on sight, usually by spraying them with Raid. Nowadays I keep empty peanut butter or mayonnaise jars in every room of my house, along with a piece of cardboard. I catch the spiders and take them outside. I trap them with the jars and slide the cardboard over the opening, then take them outside.
I also keep a flyswatter in every room. Those are for the centipedes. I have no mercy for those evil creatures. I kill them on sight. They’re too damn big and fast to trap easily, so I no longer bother.
I don’t have mice in my house now, but a few years ago, I did have them in my apartment. (I didn’t have cats at the time.) One day I trapped one in the kitchen sink using the jar technique, then I looked around and saw another one sitting next to the refrigerator. He sat there looking at me in an accusatory manner, as if to say, “What are you doing to my brother?” I felt about two inches tall. I actually apologized to him.
I am SO glad you have cats now … Are you a big fan of “An American Tail” and “Fivel Goes West”?
I have a boot-camp for vermin eradication. Consider your tuition paid if you ever come to my area. I have both a proactive and reactive methodology system. While I prefer the proactive (trapping and death) methods, I am not above the reactive (stomp or club to death) system for vermin disposal.
Also, I am of the “catch and release” spider camp, as they actually serve a very useful purpose on our farm. However, I pick them up with my hands or a dustpan. It’s just a spider, after all, and they really don’t fly — but they sure can jump, holycrap that’ll freak ya when it happens …
moar
Usually I am the help to a passle of cats. Sadly, the originals long ago went on to their final reward. I have not been able to adopt anew–yet. But I’ve always understood that cats are far more keen to keep their hunting well-honed than dogs.
Clearly, however, many dogs are hunting whatever they please just fine, thankyouverymuch. Predators do tend to favor other predators. We just do. Such is the way of the dog and the cat and the human.
And boy do I so understand what it does for my ova-hood when a man does the man thing at moments like this: Me.Yow.
rickl: I will use the jar and piece of cardboard for just about any other kind of insect. I just can’t with spiders. They’re so still and then suddenly they’re not and I’m running for my life.
Of course, then I come back in the room and can’t find the spider…but I know it’s there somewhere.
Then everything is a spider.
No, you don’t come close to winning the girly-girl crown. One day one of our surgeons was in the middle of surgery when he gets a “call home now” page.
He asked the nurse to call for him, and she relayed the message from his wife that “there’s a BIG spider in the living room. When can you come home and kill it?”
He had to relay the unfortunate news that it would be several more hours before he could come home.
While I really don’t like killin’ stuff (even insects) I felt very empowered after hearing that conversation:)
Ack. I’d sooner gnaw my hand off than pick up a spider with it.
/guess that makes me a “boyly-boy”. Or a plain ol’ wimp. ;)
Yep. Although I’ve mostly come to terms with spiders, I haven’t with centipedes.
With centipedes, you only get one chance to either capture it or kill it. If you miss, it’s gone.
…Then everything is a centipede.
It’s odd that men aren’t supposed to be afraid of spiders.
When I was a kid, my dad was my hero when it came to saving me from spiders. He used a broom and put them outside unharmed, while my sister and I screamed.
Just recently I was telling him about a conversation I’d had with a man with young kids who said he hated spiders but he was always on spider duty in his house and had to pretend to his kids he wasn’t afraid. My dad’s response was “I know how he feels.” So all those years of him telling us “it won’t hurt you” and “the spider’s more afraid of you than you are of it” were a lie and he was terrified.
Shattered my image of him a bit, that did.
I don’t get many Centipedes but the more legs, the creepier, I say.
Possum breath. I haz it.
The brown suede halter top? Oh that is just *full* of white-trash goodness possibilities!
I can just imagine Rachel wearing that thing, sitting on Rupert’s shoulders in the row behind me at a concert, Zippo lighter waving in the air, while she screams FREE BIRD! at the stage repeatedly…
Seriously. Next thing you know, we’re gonna find out that she drives a Camaro with T-tops.
Hurricane Mikey:
After that comment, I’m left wondering who ACTUALLY ate the possum!
Was our dear empress projecting, perhaps?
Halters, camaros and possums … oh my!
Rchl Lukis, President of the Republic of Texas, trashy-fun goodness.
I don’t look in the backyard, heck I hardly ever mow. Every once in a while, though, we have to wash the red or pink off our little German Shepherd bitch. Oh well, it’s her back yard, I just hope none of the neighborhood kids ends up missing and gets traced to her.
Nope. Girly-boy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that … (JK)
When you are the go-to gal for ripping out the guts and tearing off the skin, you kind of get desensitized to anything creepy-crawly. (I am eerily efficient with evisceration and flesh removal).
Due to familial allergies, we keep amphibians in our house and I feed the damn things, which quite naturally requires a fair amount of buggery. Plus, I used to work with entomologists, which is also buggery-related : )
I laughed soooo hard at this story :) I was all confused by the halter top thing, My mind wandered all over the place, thought she had stolen it off you for not letting her have her ‘possum guts. It never occurred to me that it might be used as a punishment :)
14k I almost choked on my pepsi when I read that owning amphibians required a fair amount of buggery so very sick…funny as hell but kinda sick ;)
You got me at “suede halter tops”
In that first picture, doesn’t Maggie look a bit like Jabba the Hut’s dancing girl in “Return of the Jedi”?
(I know, I’m being a nerd realizing that. But if I were a real geek, I’d actually know the dancing girl’s name and alien race!)
Good Dog.
Imagine if you had possums entering your house or garage how much worse you would be. Perhaps you have a full time animal control department where you live, but here in rural America, either the dogs take care of rats, possums, coons, etc., or we dispatch them.
Cats and dogs are carnivores. That’s what they do!
Possum? No big deal. Try skunks :)
Bucca, at 12 years, a couple months before he died got a skunk. Taking him and Simi out for last call, her leashed him not. He’s lifting his leg, his nose goes up and next thing I know he’s tearing through the yard, me dragging Simi behind me. He gets the skunk dives under the neighbors porch. Won’t come out. I tell him to go home, he trots off. Oh crap, did I remember to shut the front door? Try dealing with fresh skunk kill on a Husky at 10pm. He had skunk breath every time he burped for a few months.
“stak tartar”
ROFL! OMFG!
That was funny.
crunch
Suede halter tops …
I’ll be in my bunk.
Thweet puppeh! Suchagooddoggie.
Dogliness goes after intruding peacocks, possums, large birds, squirrels — but especially “see-ay-tees.” Seriously, we can’t even speak the word aloud in the house or Dogliness goes all REDRUM! REDRUM! on us. (“Your. dog. is-n’t. here. right. now. Mrs. Tor-rance.“)
One time a see-ay-tee actually refused to run from her, which took most of the fun out of it for Dogliness. This particular see-ay-tee just held her ground, unafraid and unconcerned that a huge brown beast was all up in its grill. Actually it turned out that all Dogliness really wanted to do — all this time! — was sniff a cat’s butt. Deeply. For like 5 minutes straight. Ah, cat-butt! Intoxicating!
Of course in the morning she’s back up on the bed licking the pillowcases and you roll over into a cold 400-thread-count dog spit lake, but that’s a story for another day.
We had a 125 pound Golden Retreiver that would stop and lay down on walks when she got tired,usually about a block away from the house. My brother would take her out for walks down his trapping stream and she would catch/kill ground hogs in one chomp. She got three on one trip once. The most lovable, over weight, slow footed dog was faster then the Flash when it came to varmints.
Sounds like some impressive carnage. I would have been sick too.
And Rupert being all manly about it-definitely hot.
Now my own story. Our previous dog (a sweet, loving border collie) adopted our latest pair of cats as her own pup. One day I was out in our yard when I found one of our cats playing with… something. Upon investigation, I realized it was a small field mouse that she had broken the back part of it’s spine so the back legs wouldn’t work. Our border collie came over and watched the proceedings a moment before darting forward and killing the mouse in one swift bite. Immediately I could hear her voice saying “Don’t play with your food!”
Before the cats we had now, we had a black stray that adopted us (loved her – she was one of the smartest and best pets we ever had). We started a game of “what did she kill today?” A short list:
Fish
Frogs
Mice
Snakes
Rabbits
Birds
Only kill I ever didn’t approve of was when she got a drunk bird that I felt sorry for (didn’t seem fair). Though I had to admit, it was impressive how fast she killed.
Rachel-
This story is why I check on your blog daily – I can count on being hilariously surprised at least once a week.
Maggie is a very good girl……….
Cheers!
graphic content alert:
When I was in high school I watched my dad saw the head off a road-kill possum so I could boil the head to put together the skull. That was some vile shit right there, watching the head go back and forth with each saw stroke, he had his foot planted on the body to keep it down, but the head was free. Anyway, boiling possum stinks. My mom wanted me to eat a piece of meat, I said “Are you fucking nuts?” Got an A on the project though, and still have the skull at my parents house.
On the topic of bugs: I have lizards so they eliminate the bugs, we just have to catch them and throw them in the tank. I use the jar method because I don’t want it touching me. We get the centipedes that are mostly legs and hardly any body. Freaky hairy lookin things they are. Fat Boy (the beardie) eats them just fine, but probably wishes they had more substance to them. I, on the other hand, don’t want them any bigger than they are.
Hurricane Mikey Says:
Hey, um, wait. I drive a Camaro with T-tops!
All of the creatures at my house have had a respite from Maggie long enough. Starting tonight the feast will commence. I will be sure to wash her down before she goes back home.
She will be loosed amongst an unsuspecting population of rabbits, stray cats, coyotes, and other sundry scavengers. It should be a real treat.
I trapped a possum once in my ‘humane’ small animal trap and Maggie went nuts. As I was trying to coax it out of the trap, Maggie reached in and grabbed it. The trap is 2 feet long and 8″x9″ wide and tall. Stuck her whole head in and snatched it out in the blink of an eye. In a matter of seconds, possum guts, possum babies, and possum fur were flying everywhere. I let her eat on the whole thing. Only some small bones were left after that feast.
I wish I had her for the snake that I found a couple of weeks ago. It had been raiding my bird houses and had fallen out of a tree. Maggie would had a long play time with that one. They are harder to kill and more fun to play with. In fact, I saw a rat the other day out in the weeds that she will probably like.
Let the hunt begin.
Dad
Good. Dog.
Wow. Just … wow.
On the viciousness of those closest to us:
I came upon our sweet family dachshund, Pepino, chewing on some fleshy goodness in our front yard. When he looked up at me, he had the “business as usual” look on his face, but in between his stubby front legs lay a pile of what looked like a nest of baby moles or mole type animals. When I got the dog, I researched it and found out that weiner dogs were actually bred to climb INTO badger holes and hunt them. So, I wasn’t surprised at this display. Good dog. Moles in the front yard = bad.
Last week, at a picnic, my 8 year old son was petting his cousin’s Boxer. He had a tootsie roll sticking out of his mouth and he didn’t know that the dog was staring at it. All of a sudden, the dog lunged for it and for a second or two, his head was INSIDE the jaws of this huge dog. No injury, but he was scared sh*tless. That’ll learn him.
Pep
My husband used to have a lab/retriever mix that literally went ape*hit at harvest time — he’d run in front of the combines eating all the mice that were scared up as the header approached. He’d flip them into the air, catch them in his mouth, and they’d begone in one giant crunch.
I saw that damn dog dig a two-foot hole to get to a ground squirrel once. He was like the terminator: just wouldn’t quit digging until he reached that crunchy goodness.
Gunner was quite a man.
Sprog just waits for me to toss out the dead ones from my house traps, and then he goes to town. I did uncover a nest once with a bunch of baby mice, and Sproggy gave me this hopeful “deez jelly beans for me?” look. He then proceeded to consume those little pink vermin with the delicacy of a charm school graduate.
14k,
With your bare hands???? You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din! (Maybe we just don’t have the same species?)
I’m with you on the utility of spiders, which is why I try not to have to squish ** when I find them under feed pans, buckets, etc!
Indoors, most spiders get ‘catch and release’ where practical — i.e. where the subject is sufficiently cooperative — must confess to a certain degree of casuistry in my judgment of spider cases!
My best catch thus far was a * in the kitchen sink. I did squeak pretty loud when I spotted her in the cereal bowl — in my hand! — before I dropped it and went to fetch the cardboard :).
*That one was on the porch — bricks, BTW, are about 2 3/4″ thick.
**She was under an upturned bucket that had been sitting around for a while.
One time I saw the biggest non-tarantula I’ve seen causually walking across our living room floor. Normally I’m the catch-and-release spider girl in the house, but this spider was a sight to behold. All three of us girls screamed and I grabbed the biggest thing nearest me: the chest-crushing 3 volume-in-one Lord of the Rings book and threw it on top of the spider. We refused to move the book and all day we walked around the book.
When our boyfriends came to our house we tried to get them to move the book. Suspicious of why a large book is sitting center of our living room floor, none of them would do it; that is until the last boyfriend arrived and discovered what we have done to his book.
I’ve never read Lord of the Rings and years later having seen the movie and realized a large spider was featured in the story, the word irony or poetic justice should be in there somewhere.
Rachel’s dad has the right idea. ‘Possums are nasty, vile creatures with lots of teeth. They hiss at you and are absolutely hideous when you get up close and personal with them. They need to deal with Maggie. She’s a good dog.
Hehe….
Our little yorkie girl, all 5 pounds of her, once came back into the house chewing on a suspicious lump. My wife tried to get it out of her little mouth only to find it was the head of a bird – we found the remains of the carcass in the spa gazebo where the bird had become trapped and fallen prey to the tiny psychopath. This is the same yorkie who, with her slightly larger brother had managed to corner a squirrel and were about to put an end to its life when I intervened, having been called out of the house by the predatory barking. Lapdogs my a$$
felicity,
Good christ, woman, I wouldn’t touch those with my ex-husband’s hands!
We have and and
I’ve even seen one of two of
Especially if they’re huntsman spiders, Jodie.
*shudders at the memories*
14k,
That third one looks like a jumping machine — the jumpy ones give me the heebie jeebies!
(the second one came up as a one-pixel .gif – ???? Want evil spider pic. You give me it. :)!)[Edit: I ask and receive! Thanks! Ummm, does it strike you as the least bit odd that we both have multiple, flower-mode pictures of spiders handy by?]
[Fourth one has a very prominent abdomen indeed — expect spiderlings any moment!]
Oh my gosh this had me laughing so hard!!! I love that this confirms your girly side. *grin*
I remember when Quinn killed her first squirrel. I was totally and completely freaked out and just froze. Hubby got all hot and policeman like – issuing orders and taking control of the situation. She had blood spurting from her nose (noses bleed a lot!) from a small scratch but she was SOOOO happy. Wagging her tail and a big ol grin on her face.
She’s since killed 6 or 7 more and we’re okay with that. The vet assured us that squirrels around here don’t typically have rabies. And they eat our bird feed and bulbs.
I’m not sure what I’d do if it were an all out war on possums. We’ve never had one in our yard, Thank GOD!
felicity,
Linkage restored! : )
Not at all. Like I said earlier, I am kind of into bugs, spidies, the like. I have actually sent bugs I have found into The Puyallup Insect Laboratory for identification.
UGH – not only are possums mean, ugly, and dumpy, they’re also kinda stoopit. For years I’d been taught that they “play dead” to avoid predators. This is actually a lie. Any possum playing “possum” is in fact not playing – it has fainted.
Seriously, enough panic kicks in and *poof*, down they go. It’s like nature knew that they were going to be a frequently-eaten species and gave them the gift of not being awake for the event.
This post was sooo confusing for me. The whole time I was thinking, “what, dogs are supposed to kill and eat possums. If God didn’t want dogs eating possums, he wouldn’t have put all the parts dogs think are delicious deep inside where you had to kill them to eat them.”
When I was a kid, we lived in a Dallas suburb that had a good number of varmits, and our two half coyote dogs. They hunted — hunted our backyard. Possums. Rabbits. Rats. Mice. Birds that were dumb enough to land in the deep weeds where they were hiding. Bugs. Lizards. If it walked, crawled or slithered, it was a snack for the pack.
Then I realized that you just didn’t want to have to wash her every day before you brought her back in, and it all made sense. Let Maggie be an outside dog. I bet she would still be happy (until she ran out of possums, which wouldn’t be for at least a week.)
Erm… ok, don’t worry about possums having rabies. Their very low body temperature is unfriendly to rabies or, really, a bunch of other nasty bugs. Squirrels, yeah: they’re smart (smarter than my dopey dogs, but that’s a different story), invasive, and only too often rabid. But possums are highly resistant to rabies.
Hey Angel, do your ringtails look like ? I’m in California and we have them around here. They’re like raccoons, but less obnoxious.
Any poisonous spider spotted, anywhere, is dead meat if I can safely reach it.
But centipedes are very good if you’re a gardener. I do my best to capture them (not bare handed) and throw them into whichever area of the garden I want most protected from obnoxious insects. I read somewhere those things can average 200 other bugs per day. It is pretty freaky for my wife, though. She even hates the vegetarian, slow moving millipedes!
As for yard carnage, we live in a 10-year-old, recovering clearcut, so it’s a target rich environment. Some years it’s the bunnies, some years it’s Hispid Cotton Rats (which are not rats at all, but a large sort of vole, so actually really cute — no really!). The bunnies make a horrible noise when caught — they literally scream.
Three occasions come to mind.
The Saddest(when College Girl was about 12):
We came home from town one evening to hear the unearthly shrieking of a baby bunny close by. Turned out to be in the grip of our old GS, who obediently surrendered it into the waiting hands of College Girl where, though having no obvious wounds, it slowly expired. Tears. Lots of tears.
The most recent:
Just last week, I had to dispose of a headless bunny. I opted for a handy garden fork, but didn’t want to skewer the corpse, so had a devil of a time keeping Flopsy’s limp and headless body on the fork whilst I marched off into the brush in search of an old stump. Luckily, clearcuts are almost as full of rotting stumps as they are of bunnies, so I quickly found one, kicked it over, tucked Flopsy in, and flipped the stump back into place, pretending to myself that this would provide a sufficient obstacle to three curious BCs. Yeah.
The Most Amusing (for me, ’cause I’m sick like that):
We had some guys here, working on a project (the poor Boss was trapped in a cubicle at the time), and they had a nasty habit of leaving trash from their lunches lying about for my dogs to find — despite my solicitous provision of appropriate receptacles! So, when I found just a fluffy white tail and pair of tiny paws near their cars one morning, I couldn’t resist:
Pearls before swine!
The worst was coming out early one morning to find only a pair of baby bunny ears, a fluffy cotton-tail and a stomach, stuffed with grass, on my back door stop. I felt really bad. But I think it’s good for the cats and dog ( whoever did it, they are not confessing) to eat the stuff they catch. Their bodies are designed to eat raw prey and digest all the parts, so it’s healthly for them, and makes less of a clean-up chore. The only exception I make is for birds, if I catch them in the act, and the bird can fly away.
14k,
Cool! Haven’t got that far, though I have saved unidentified baby snakes(cat’s kills) in jars of alcohol for presentation to my cousin the herpetologist :).
The librarians who raised me imparted a lasting affection for naturalist field guides — nerds of a feather!
Our lab/bloodhound mix (Otis, who you featured as your Dog of the Week recently) has been trying in vain to catch a possum on our 6′ wood fence for the last 5 years.
Our 14 year old beagle follows closely behind him just in case he gets lucky.
The possum would just sit there and grin that evil little hissing grin, knowing they were safely out of the dogs’ reach.
Just sitting there mocking.
Until of course, we brought home Angus. A 150 lb, 6’+ tall (when he stands on his hind legs) super black Great Dane.
Who can reach the top of our 6′ fence. And swat possums off of it.
How many “crunches” does it take a Great Dane to get to the center of a possum-flavored lollipop?
One. Just one.
That’s some mighty fresh and natural dog food right there. You should call your favorite sponsor and talk to them about it. :-)
I can understand the whole clean-up thing. That would be rather annoying after a while. The good news is that possums are rather hideous little creatures, so I can’t imagine you cried for too long over the loss of one on your wall. Seriously, they’re all snarly and weird looking.
That’ll be ten hail marys, Gidget!!
moar
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, dogs gotta eat stuff and gross out their owners. Have any of your dogs eaten your socks yet? Or a Brillo pad?
About that halter top, was it supposed to make lovely Maggie look like ? (Even he wasn’t perfectly evil — he loved his little pet!)
But Maggie isn’t evil for defending her subjects from possums, she was just doing what any good Boadicea-like monarch would do — she is, after all, the Queen of all Argyll! (poor me — I was about five hours too late for that thread :)!)
14k,
pfffft! That is a bad habit indeed!
Rachel, Maggie is the sweetest dog I’ve ever seen! What a face, what a smile. I have such serious dog envy when I come here . Sigh. But dear husband is not yet ready to get another dog. But the kids and I are working on him.
Way back in the olden days, when I was single, I had a cat named Alex, who was a great hunter. Over the years she presented me with mice, moles, a bird, enormous crickets from my basement (HUGE back legs dangling from her mouth), and the biggest, fattest garden slugs you’ve ever seen. She used to leave the slugs on the carpet outside my bedroom door. I’ve always wondered whether that was some kind comment from her on my taste in men.
I’m totally with you on the need to teach Maggie that her varmint-killin’ is not okay (though completely understandable.)
**graphic story to follow**
Because you just don’t know what your neighbors are capable of under stress. One of my neighbors killed another neighbor’s husky with a pitchfork after the husky escaped from his backyard and attacked a cat in the other neighbor’s yard. No charges were filed, but it caused a huge rift among the families on our block and both families have since moved. The dark side of these kinds of situations, I’m afraid.
Or a Wonderbread sack that held an old sandwich which you then had to pull out of its butt?
Alby Mangels (another rescued heeler) was indeed sh*tting rainbows (or rainbow bubbles) that day!
nom nom
Good lord, I shouldn’t have read these comments before lunch. Urg.
Possum must taste especially tender and sweet to dogs because my boxer, Bo, goes crazy when there are possum in the backyard. He actually leapt OVER a 6′ wooden fence to get a possum in our neighbor’s backyard. What a freaky sight for my neighbors: a normally goofy boxer flying over your back fence with tongue lolling, jowls flapping, wild eyes, and gratuitous balls slapping every which way.
I had a blue-pointe Siamese named Azure who had a sensitive stomach. The only thing worse than stepping on a half-eaten mouse in your bare feet (during a half-asleep trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night) is stepping on the other, regurgitated half!
Now for my dog and skunk story:
When I was growing up out in the country, we had a dog named Rusty. He was a mix of several hunting types, peanut-butter tan colored, with floppy ears. He got sprayed by a skunk as a pup, and made it his mission in life to rid the world of those critters. The first couple times he took on a skunk we did have to do the tomato juice bath routine, but he got it down to a science on taunting the skunk into spraying as he’d jump away. He’d get them to use up all their ammo and then CRUNCH. One more dead skunk for Rusty. He’d come home with no more than the faintest hint of odor, if that. And he’d leave the corpse on the back steps as a gift. One time he left us a muskrat on the steps, too. Quite a hunter.
Our Springer Spaniel, Roxy, regularly hunted, killed, and crushed within her jaws, squirrels. Since we had a pecan orchard, the fruits of which we actually sold, this was considered a good thing. Not only would Roxy kill them, she would carry them around like a chew toy for weeks afterward. Finally they would get so nasty and rancid she wouldn’t touch them, and I’d have to pick them up and throw them over the fence.
But one of my fondest memories is of my mom coming out of the house, and saying, “Roxy, where’s your squirrel?” and Roxy would go get the dead squirrel and parade it in front of my mom.
Varmints deserve death and Maggie should be commended for ridding the world of one more.
Possums are cool. Had one as a pet in Northern California years ago we raised from a red little peanut that had fallen off its mother. We maintain a habitrail for the mice we manage to extricate undamaged from the cats’ teeth. There’s a cute little field mouse in there now. He’s not overly friendly like some of the larger varieties. It tries to bite the hand that feeds it but its mouth is too small. The other critters we DON’T rescue are discovered as piles of feathers or heads. Very distressing. Particularly bunny heads. Not so many of them left around here. Then there’s the incredibly disgusting green critter innard that Mookie insists on leaving by the front door or deck sliders. Nice way to greet the guests.
I think spiders, by the way, are quite cool. I had a tarantula in college named Boris (after the Who song “Boris the Spider”), and I’d catch crickets and grasshoppers and feed them to him. He was a good spider.
I had some dirty neighbors when I moved into my first apartment, and the roaches got in through the walls, I suspect. I went out to my parents’ farm and caught a whole mason jarful of those black and white jumping spiders. Then I brought them to my apartment and set them loose. For the next couple weeks it was like Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom…watching the spiders kill and eat the roaches. Then there were no more roaches, the spiders died off, and I’d scoop them up and flush them down the toilet.
Spiders are cool. Other bugs….ugh. Oh, and praying mantises (or is it manti?) are pretty wicked as well.
14 Karat Says:
Coffee spewed!
Our old GS ate all manner of odd things — drywall? — but the prettiest poos came from her Barbie* clothes episode. Hot pink doody!
*I did not bring the damnable things into the house — friends and relations! — but I did manage to make sure we married them all off to G.I. Joes — whew!
Don’t know her race, but her name is Oola.
I have to say it: Critters are not varmints. We were going to kidnap the farmer’s black squirrel until our landscaper told us we’d have our own when there was enough for them to eat. Twelve years later and that’s one of the few animals that don’t roam the acreage. Plus, the black squirrel ended up a sail squirrel on Iowa 275 just a few weeks after my husband and I were scheming. I can’t believe people are shooting squirrels. I’m shocked and appalled. Shame on you.
Not really, John – although maybe similar sized?
They look like or even . Brushtail possums are actually supposed to be quite intelligent, similar to dogs.
Felicity & 14. Years ago we had a Doberman that ate everything. Mom had to fence her garden because Val would wander in and strip the plants. She would eat unripe blackberries right off the brambles. In any event, one day she made off with my sister and my prize marble. You guessed it: We followed her around until it was ejected a couple of days later. It came out like a cherry on a sundae. Mom wandered out to see what we were up to and luckily being one of 14 children, nothing surprised her.
Australlian possums appear to be much more attractive than those here. The U. S. version is intelligent but severely impaired by poor vision.
alert.
It’s cool, otcconan!
Twi’lek from the planet Ryloth.
/Supreme dork
otcconan Says:
Yowzer! And I thought we were savage for watching a Katydid eat leaf hoppers on the outside of the window screen (turning them round and round like tiny corn-on-the-cob, munching away, nom nom nom!).
Hehehehe. Nice visual, iowavette. Two little pig-tailed, fresh-faced, freckled beauties stalking and then sifting through an enormous pile of doberman sh*t. That’s hysterical!
And you all are giving me guff for picking up spiders!
iowavette,
Good catch!
Love the imagery!
But you had me worried there for just a second (*grins evil grammar-nazi grin*):
[I’m sorry — just couldn’t resist the eeevil urge — bad, bad me!]
That’s totally wicked. See how it cast its own tether in the form of a web as it jumped? In case it missed the mark, it wouldn’t fall. Awesome.
I don’t have the heart to kill spiders. It’s not that they’re icky or anything, I just think they’re too cool for school. They eat insects and I hate insects (praying mantis aside).
About the only thing above a spider in the invertebrate food chain is the mud dauber, a wasp that poisons the spider with its sting, then encases the (still living) spider in its adobe nest with its larvae, who feed upon the spider while it’s still alive. Mud daubers get into everything, and we’d find nests everywhere. I would break them open any chance I got, just so I could release the spiders.
Another cool insect, by the way…ant lions.
We had a wood floor in our workshop, and there’d be all these craters created by the ant lions. An ant wanders into it, looses his grip, and falls to the bottom of the pit, where the antlion eats him. You could use your thumb and index finger as a tong, reach down into the center of that pit, and pluck out the antlion.
You get a whole bunch of em in a mason jar, say 12 or so, then you stomp your boot into a fire ant nest, and pour them out onto the nest, and watch the fun. Usually the ants won just on sheer numbers, but there were occasions where the ant lions killed so many that the ants just retreated down into the nest rather than continue the fight.
I love the concept of animal pugilism. Especially insect v. insect. I wouldn’t find a cock fight or a dogfight or bearbaiting entertaining, but I watched a grass snake against a lizard once on my back porch and it was fascinating.
So far haven’t caught the Golden Retriever catching prey – but she’s still young. She does frequently jump the fence barring her from the creek, though.
There’s a cat door, and house-trained cats. Over the years they’ve brought in numerous critters including snakes, birds (once an owl), hedgehogs, squirrels, mice…and bunny rabbits. Little baby bunny rabbits (which are PLENTIFUL hereabouts).
Best time was rescuing the baby bunny from the cat when all the kids were panicking, and Dear Husband was donning work gloves. I just picked the poor, pitiful thing up and returned it to the forest out back. Worst time was coming downstairs to the remains of…well, we think it was a bunny. Only blood and fur was left.
otcconan:
I know about mud daubers, and have also broken up many a nest.
, OTOH, I didn’t know about. I mean, I have seen them, but had no idea what they did.
I have provided a link, because these are indeed wicked awesome — check out the hidey-trappy-sand-pitty things — kind of like
Oh, and your love of insect vs. animal pugilism — exoskeleton.
otcconan — i sent you a reply but i can’t find it — if it doesn’t appear, i will try again later
yes, i am channeling ee cummings, as i feel slightly diminuative at the moment
i posted to the site of the goddess
a comment of most high import
perhaps the canine carnivorous companion
of the omnibus operator
disapproved with a snapping retort
i said i was channeling — not that i was channeling well …
Edit: Thanks, Rchl
Hey, I recognize !
The thing about hunting dogs is that you have to train them away from catching and killing critters you don’t want them to hunt. Like skwirlz and bunnies and rats and mice. Or you go out after quail and pheasant and end up chasing bunnies and skwirlz all day.
I hates skwirlz.
I haven’t personally tried them but I hear granny Clampett has some good possum recipes.
atweber, give it a miss unless you’re in protein starvation. SRSLY. They’re better than raccoon but that’s not saying much.
Halter? I doubt it’ll even slow her down. Nice try though!
My cat leaves lizard, mice, bird, and snake carcasses on the front porch.
My dogs leave critter parts all over the back yard, although not as much lately, I think the critters have learned to stay away now.
Very recently our 14 pound Pomerainian / Antichrist in training Tater busted in on a poor rabit den full of babies. I managed to get a hold of him, but not before, mom and three of her six children died a grisly death at his blood covered paws and snout.
If you’ve never expirienced the screams of rabits you’re lucky becuase its the most horrible sound I’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing in my life.
Before that, my Boxer, Snickers, ATB *Sniff Sniff* made it a point to collect Squirrel Scalps in the backyard. She wasn’t into actually eating them, she would just kill them for ‘sport’ and leave their carcasses in the yard.
ignatius,
What did you do with the other babies? Just curious.
The possums(and skunks and raccoons)will brave the dangers of dogs to get at their dog food. My own dogs have never been given to making distinctions about which animals they would kill for stealing their food, which has led to some smelly situations. ‘Coons are the worst, since a large coon can seriously hurt even large coon hounds. Even dog bones left laying around will attract wild animals.
HOly Smoke- Rachel’s Dad has a blog?!
Oddly enough,
Right. Oddly enough.
The cat we have now is WAY too lazy and too much of a sissy to kill anything. He thinks he’s all big and bad, but any opportunity we’ve given him to go outside and take care of what has got his fur in a bunch has been passed by. What a wuss!
However, the first cat I ever owned was a hunter with every bone in his body. I cannot count how many times (and this doesn’t speak highly of my intelligence), I would step out on the back porch and step directly onto mouse guts, mole heads, a dead bird, dead lizards, etc. He was always bringing me some kind of present and always looked so damn proud of himself when I would find them. Even though I was very grossed out from stepping on guts in my bare feet (I’m not sure why I never learned to put shoes on) I always made sure to scratch his ears and tell him what a good boy he was and then quickly went to bleach my feet. God I miss that cat!
This reminds me of the time a bat got in the house when I was a kid. Mom and sister doing the ugh get it out of here thing.Dad with a broom and my Brother and I with badminton racquets trying to herd it out the door, when it swooped down in front of the cat, who killed it with a lightning right paw swipe. Not knocked down, not just stunned but dead, then gave us a “That’s how it’s done morons” look.
Well, raised by librarians — cross referencing pretty much hard-wired into the circuitry — so, yeah. Oddly enough!
BTW — Loved the jumping spider, too cool, but had to feel sorry for (girly moment)!
No, srsly, there’s always a song … : )
You have to scroll down for this verse (because the scouts just keep making up more):
You are one twisted chick, girlfriend. A round-robin child song about roadkill.
Homeschooled children, you have? Shudder.
And as for the bee thing, there is a major study going on right now here on my turf. It’s a really intriguing conundrum …
Cool! My aged parents were participating in a census of non-honeybee, pollinator species — pretty neat, except the census used destructive sampling. They’d have meetings where they got together to identify the critters they’d caught — a lot of flies, interestingly!
Though I doubt that will be much help to the almond growers and others who depend on rent-a-hives!
Older one learned that one at Scout camp! (before I abandoned the Scouts — Girl, not Boy — as too hopelessly liberal!)
“actual possum guts dangling from her chin.”
You mean “Vero Possumus”?
Which means “Yes, we can roll over and play dead when faced with danger!”
That’s a good song for embedding the dangers of careless road-crossing into young minds. SRSLY. I taught it and variants to MY kids for just that reason. The missus thought it was cruel that I always pointed out roadkill to the midgets, I silenced her with the argument of OBJECT LESSONS.
Hee hee. I’ve had groundhog. I’ve had possum. Possum is better, but that’s like saying that vinegar popsicles are better than road-salt popsicles.
Both are better than raccoon. Even rat is better than raccoon. (Well, I think that was rat on that stick…)
Tully,
I’ll take over possum any day.
Bleecchh for both, but at least the squirrel is less vitriolic and rancid tasting — but I defer to your popsicle analogy!
It it’s edible, not a “trash bird” and not insect-based, I’ve probably eaten it at one time or another.
Grew up poor in the backwoods, dontchaknow.
Sheesh, it’s only natural for your dog. I feed my dogs raw meat and raw meaty bones. This morning I chopped up a whole chicken and every bit was gone in 10 minutes. Every. Bit. Not the intestines though. Tonight, they’ll go through a couple rabbits. Hunting season, they’ll have deer for months. Their stomachs are acid bathes and they have not evolved to eat cereal nor cooked foods.
Could be worse. My dog likes to snorf panties. Especially my wife’s panties. After, well, you know…
So your dog is a murderer. Mine’s a pervert.
Dogette,
Your entire post of:
June 26th, 2008 at 7:31 am …
I now must clean the upholstry on my chair, as I have officially wet my pants.
Tony redrummery, peacock snackery, cat-butt sniffery, doggy smackdownery and thread count soggery all in one concise comment.
I could die with a smile. Intestines willed to Maggie.
For the record, cats do not play…..they practice. (Kitteh thawt:”Who knows? You might need to know how to leap off the fridge onto someone’s head someday.”) I remember vividly going out to the garage to transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer. As I leaned over to toss in the wet clothes, I looked down and saw a f*&king copperhead between my feet. Instantly, wet t-shirts & underwear impacted the front & back garage walls simultaneously. I sprouted prehensile toenails long enough to hang from the exposed ceiling joists, sailing up rather like an unattractive, overweight bat. As I dangled inverted, heart tattooing my ribcage, I managed, between raspy breaths, to notice the snake had not moved. In the slightest. Evidently, as it turns out, cat (as we called her) had whacked the thing in the yard someplace, and had dropped it off for us to admire. Either that, or she was leaving us a message ‘See? I can do the same thing to you, too’. Note to self: make SURE to put cat food out EVERY day.
My great-grandfather (from Tishomingo, Oklahoma) used to have one bumper-sticker on his car. It read, “Eat More Possum.”
Our problem is Coyotes. Several generations of Dobies have taught them that crossing our fence is a death sentence.
The problem is rabies, we have to make very sure that shots are very current.
The flow does seem to have slowed down in the last few years, do Coyotes have genetic memory?
If so it’s a shame, the Dobies enjoyed the fight and snack.
As a writer once wrote, “Dogs like meat. Raw meat. When was the last time you saw a dog attack a wheat field?”
Feeding dogs a diet of puffed carbohydrate kibble sprayed with re-rendered rancid oil left over from the the local fry pit at McDonalds does not constitute Good Eats to a dog.
They want meat and bones, preferably raw. And innards. Loves them innards! And crunch. Mmmmm. Bone marrow. Fatty goodness.
Rob,
The story about the copperhead in the garage has me laughing my ass off. I’ve been up since 2:30am and REALLY needed a good laugh to shake off my grumpiness. Thank you!