[Ojai]

Good morning, gracielove (at least, it's still morning here)! You are right about opossums, and I was never suggesting that we let our pups romp with them, as if that were even possible ... the opossums would waddle away as fast as they could! We have never had a report of a rabies outbreak around here, although admittedly some people think I'm nuts (no pun intended) for picking up squirrels. Usually, I get the hairless little newborns, and they grow up tame and never bite (but when they get a little bigger they can scratch like demons while being hand-fed!), and even come back to visit once they have been released. Where I live, our bigger concerns are coyotes, owls, and hawks (and raccoons who ate my two ducks -- last week we also had a homeowner shoot a mama bear with an adolescent cub for repeatedly breaking into his chicken coop; all hell is breaking loose over that). And further south, in Orange County, several people in a retirement village just a couple of months ago had their yorkies stalked and snatched by coyotes right out of their arms! One poor woman was walking her Yorkie on a leash and the coyote grabbed her little pooch while the woman struggled valiantly in a tug-of-war with with the coyote. It eventually knocked her over and took off with her dog. She later found his bloodied collar. She was bruised and in utter shock when she was interviewed on TV. Here, since we are adjacent to a national forest, the coyotes will sometimes trot nonchalantly down the street in daylight, but they are not as aggressive; 4 1/2-pound Cubby spotted one in the middle of day while I was in the front yard with the dogs, and ran the thing off, with me in hot pursuit! But they can be heard at night, stalking someone's cat, usually. Learning to protect our pets from wildlife is an ongoing challenge, especially when one moves into wildlife territory. My only point was that opossums are the least of people's worries. Except for the fleas!