THE SUN WAS NOT YET AWAKE

It was the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The sun was still sleeping. Eric and I awoke to repeated high pitched squeals and yelps coming from the back yard. Dakota was going to awake the entire neighborhood and someone was going to call the police on us. We were all still trying to sleep.

Eric went to the sliding glass door and attempted to "talk Dakota down". I know there is no talking Dakota down so I went to the basement and out the French doors. (The dogs have a door through which they can enter and leave the house at will. The back yard is double fenced. There is a 5 foot high chain link fence and then about 10 feet farther out from that is an 8 foot solid privacy fence. The idea is that they have to get over, under or through two solid fences to escape. So, we feel relatively safe in allowing them free entrance to the back yard. The fencing also makes it more difficult for strangers to enter.)

It's nearly 3 am and I'm in my nightgown attempting to grab the collar of a nearly 100 pound yellow "wolf dog". She's jumping, dancing, lunging, salivating, showing her teeth, squealing and yelping at something she believes is under the picnic table. I managed to get her into the house and lock her in. I went back out to see if there was something under the picnic table or if she was hallucinating again.

It was a terrified opossum. I'd never seen an opossum close up. My goodness, they are not one of God's most attractive creatures. This poor fellow was utterly convinced that a violent, savage attack was going to end his life soon. He was backed up against the foundation of the house under and behind the picnic table. Their faces look remarkably like a rat with a long snout. His snout was stretched open wide and he was emitting loud continuous hisses. Eric who knows more about opossums than I do assures me that they engage in that open mouthed hissing behavior right before they fall over and pretend to be dead. I felt terribly sorry for him. He was so incredibly frightened and even the ugly and the stupid do not deserve to suffer that type of fear.

I went in the house hoping that he would be able to make his way out of the yard. We still don't know how he got in although at my old job I did see an opossum trapped on a 15 foot high electrified fence topped with razor wire. I did not want to be forced to call animal control to remove him. As I went back in the house, Dakota is still jumping, dancing, lunging and emitting shrill yelps and squeals. Turns out, she was as afraid of the opossum as he was of her. An ugly stranger had intruded into her private enclave and oh my goodness, it might have entered the house through her door. I managed to get her quieted down although by the time I had her calm all three of the other dogs were up and shaking off their dreams.