Look at this guy.
This opossum-fighting beast.
My buddy’s dog Milo has been worked up about a opossum who, most nights around 10:30 PM, has been traversing the fence in Milo’s back yard. It’s a big opossum—named Big Papi by my buddy (Milo, in contrast, has been referring to him with a series of barks and snarls), and as King of the Yard™, Milo’s been offended by intrusions upon his domain.
Two-plus weeks ago, on New Year’s Eve (found this saved in the drafts—my bad, everyone), Milo and a few of his human subjects were enjoying the backyard when Big Papi came crawling across the fence.
Milo went nuts.
This wasn’t abnormal. Milo’s heckled Big Papi before. Said things you wouldn’t imagine could come out of that fluffy lad’s bark box.
But then something different happened.
Milo got the bastard.
To be clear, opossum’s aren’t bastards. They’re marsupials, like the rest of us. But in Milo’s eyes, this intruder was a bastard and many more, worse, things. And after Big Papi hissed at him, Milo gave a thrilling leap and knocked the angry and/or scared dude down from the fence.
It was noisy, and unclear if Milo was just playing or trying to kill, but the result, when my buddy’s wife called off the dog, was a dead animal lying in the corner of the yard, just feet below its home—a big tree at the end of the fence.
Except the animal wasn’t dead, of course, because the animal was a opossum, and still is, and got up a few minutes later and went up the tree, home to its wife and children.
Anyway, Happy New Year. Here’s a website devoted to opossums:
