Dog Gone Interesting

I was debating whether or not to have Teddy tell this story on his blog but I decided to post it myself.

I let the dogs out for “Last Call” last night and took care of my business like brushing my teeth, changing for bed, etc.  When I went to let them in, I could hear them barking outside.  This is not unusual as they will often bark at the neighbors if they’re in their back yard or they’ll bark at someone walking out in the wetland.

I opened the door and whistled for them.  I did not hear the padding of little furry feet on the deck boards but heard them continuing to bark.  I called for them. They still did not come.  I switched the little door alarm to “chime” and closed and opened the door a couple of times.  Nothing but more barking.

Then I noticed that the noises were coming from the side of the yard opposite our only neighbors.

It was raining a bit so I went ahead and went through the house to the other door, grabbing a flashlight along the way.  I went outside and clicked on the flashlight, scanning the yard for the dogs.  They were about ten feet in front of my at the bottom of the steps, barking up a storm… but at what?

I scanned the beam upward and lit on a critter sitting on top of the fence. “They’ve chased down a cat,” I thought.  Then I realized the “cat” wasn’t moving very quickly (odd for a cat) and took a second look.  It was an opossum! My boys had treed (fenced, actually) and opossum.

After a little bit of coaxing, and some shouting, the dogs came inside.  I told the wife about it and grabbed the camera.  I managed to get a couple of shots (I’ll post something when I have time to download the pictures from the camera) and, once the dogs were gone, the opossum finally decided to hop off the fence into the field and was gone.