Posted by Chris Williams on September 28, 2005 at 16:38:17:
In Reply to: Latest pet story posted by B. Freet on September 27, 2005 at 21:21:00:
I have a good story about my dog Eddie, a Jack Russell terrier. When my wife got up one morning a couple of weeks ago she let Eddie out to potty. Just before leaving for work, I opened the back door and called for him to come in. I heard barking. I figured he had cornered one of the cats so I went out to investigate. Something about his bark sounded odd… it sounded like he was above me somewhere.
Sure enough, I walked over to one of our pine trees. Eddie was about 10 feet up in the tree barking at a opossum that was way out on the limb. Knowing Eddie (a tenacious little guy), I knew that the only way to get him back into the house was to get rid of whatever had his attention; I had to get the opossum out of the tree. I grabbed a few tomatoes from the garden and chucked them at the opossum. No luck in round one (I'm not known as having a good tomato chucking arm). I grabbed a few more. I hit him once but it had no effect. I grabbed a couple of 6 foot garden stakes and taped them together. I tried poking him and got him pretty good. That prompted him to turnaround and Eddie tore into him. After a few more pokes (not sure if I was poking Eddie or the possum) the possum went back to the end of the limb. I tried poking him again and the stick broke.
My last resort was to get my extension ladder and go after Eddie. He wasn’t very interested in coming down but I was finally able to get him down. This whole ordeal, plus having to give him a bath and changing my clothes, made me about an hour late for work. After two weeks he still has little spots of pine tar on him.
The next day I saw a dead opossum on the road close to our house (I don’t think he was playing “possum” because he was pretty flat). I guess the little fella decided that he’d rather take a chance against a car than Eddie.
A friend suggested that I may be able to train Eddie to put up my Christmas lights this year. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
The next day, God bless him, Eddie chewed through the cable for our cable TV. He’s a pain in the rear but I sure do like him!