The past couple of days Jane has been acting agitated at night, roaming around the house and sniffing at a hole in the baseboard. We suspected there might be an animal in the crawl space, and (being the lackadaisical homeowners that we are) took no action besides opening the crawl space access door, so that if said animal was trapped, it could get out.
Tonight around 4 am, Jane yelped loud enough to wake me despite my earplugs. I was fumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out what was going on, when Georg got up too and turned on the hall light. At which we discovered a dead possum lying in the hall. Judging from the blood stains a couple of feet away from it, Jane must have killed it right there in the hall. And I nearly stepped on it in the dark, in my bare feet.
Much yelling of various colorful exclamations ensued. I got the dogs away from the possum, and Georg rolled it up in the hall rug and took it outside. Here's the really creepy part: as soon as he got it outside, the dead possum got up and ran away. I guess there's some truth to that expression "playing possum." The poor possum must have been badly hurt. I hope it survives long enough to get far enough away that Jane can't find its body.
As you can imagine, we're both really creeped out and not at all in the mood to sleep. In the morning I'm going to call the vet and see if Jane needs to be checked out. She isn't wounded but who knows if she might have picked up a disease or something. And I'm trying to find out the name of that humane critter disposal service, to look under our crawl space in case there are any other possums under there. Also go to Home Depot and get some wood to nail over that hole in the wall, until we can put up a proper baseboard. Which we will be doing as soon as possible.
I looked in my big dog book and the only disease they mentioned that could be transmitted from a rodent to a dog was rabies. The book said that even a vaccinated dog that was bitten by a potentially rabid animal should be revaccinated. I checked Jane all over for a bite or scratch & didn't find anything. But she bit the possum, and probably ingested some of its blood. I'll see what the vet says when they open.
My mother used to get possums in her yard all the time, and they do indeed "play possum" so that other critters leave them alone. If Jane wasn't bitten or scratched the chance of rabies transmission is probably very low. Lucy has killed a few mice and I had the same rabies worry, but was told by a vet that revaccination wasn't necessary in our case.
The vet said that to be 100% safe she should get a booster vaccination, and they're going to do it today. I'm going to check her again for wounds this morning when I'm less groggy.
well that was certainly a surprise in the wee hours!
I am very, very glad you didn't step on the possum with your bare foot. Very, very glad.
Yuck. Just the kind of thing you want to encounter when you're not even fully awake!
I'm glad you're taking Jane in for a rabies booster. Unfortunately, possums (also racoons) are prone to carry rabies. Years ago, my mother used to leave food out for possums and racoons, but stopped because of that threat. However, it's just to be safe--since the possum was out at night, doing all the natural possomy things, it probably wasn't rabid at all. If you see a possum or racoon out during the day, that's when you should avoid them at all costs.
Interestingly, rats cannot get rabies. I read that online, and then the Westchester Health Dept. assured me, after I went to the emergency room for antibiotics for a deep rat bite (after breaking up a fight between two angry bucks, Pluto and Felix).
Yikes! That must have been scary.
I'm glad you're all ok though!
Also, of course, possums aren't rodents; they're marsupials, the only such still native to the world outside Australia.
Poor possum! Poor Sarah and Georg! And poor Jane, deprived of a clean kill. . . .