I reached into the dark tub of dog food and jerked my hand back at movement. This is what I saw.
Just a cute little Didelphis virginiana, I says to myself. What to do? It will have a broken neck if the dogs get hold of it. When the coast was clear, the cute little Virginia Opossum was transferred to a cage for transportation and loaded into the back of the Land Cruiser.
Just as it was let loose in the tall grass on the hill behind the barn, up come two dogs. The dogs’ attention was easily diverted by offering them a ride in the Land Cruiser.
OK how did it get into a covered can? Tricky little guy! We have a wild adult who watches our place at night. Love it, because most of the TN possums I see are flat…on the road….
It appeared the lid had been left off in this instance – not that it would stop much since a big fat red squirrel chewed gaping holes in the plastic lid.
The possums here steal cat food and drop it into the water bowls to soften it up, so I find little piles of bloated cat food in piles around the front of the house. I take it possums don’t like to chisel through dry food, or maybe their digestion requires hydration while masticating in general.
I would have screamed my head off! Either the tub or food pellets were big, but this possum looks tiny! Hope it didn’t leave any critters behind in the food!
-Kim
I’ve seen some crazy looking critters with traveling around in Europe, but possums give me the creepers. Looks at its nails! Don’t they carry rabies? Or is that skunks.. Either way, I’m happy to hear that he was returned to his natural habitat. He did look cozy in that bucket of food though 🙂
AWW!! I remember that!! Those are really good pictures…could you send me them?