Abbey's Latest Hunt

Lately, Abbey has been obsessing more than usual about the critters in the backyard.  Normally she only really shows interest if she's outside and one of them dares to enter her territory, but the last few weeks she has been actively on patrol, staring out the window and waiting for one of them to show themselves.  It usually doesn't take long, since the neighborhood has a large population of squirrels and possums.

Target Acquired

Once she finds her target du jour, she invariably tries to convince me that she all of a sudden has to go to the bathroom really, really bad.  Of course, I'm not falling for it.  But then the high-pitched whine starts and eventually she wins out.  I try to make enough noise to scare off the critter before opening the screen door to the outside, but let's face it -- possums are stupid.

The reason I try to scare them off is not because I'm worried that Abbey is going to kill one.  Far from it, actually.  She's the worst hunter in the world, mainly because she doesn't seem to understand why she's hunting. It's as if when she sees prey, some dusty old synapse in the back of her dog brain, a vestigial remnant of instinct from her wolf ancestry starts firing randomly and she knows she needs to get that thing fast.  Of course, the instinct isn't complete enough to tell her what she should be doing with it once it's caught, so on the rare occasion that she finds herself face-to-face with her target, the rest of her brain has to fill in the details with whatever previous situations she has encountered that might seem an appropriate resolution to the matter. Thus, her brain generally fills in the end of the story with Now we're friends! Let's play!

Abbey's Playtime, Possum View.
You can see how they might get the wrong idea.

This happened once before, when I hadn't realized that she saw something in the darkness beyond. When I opened the door, she bolted out so fast that she left a road runner-style puff of cloud behind her. Apparently, the possum was caught just as off guard as I was, and it immediately found itself facing Abbey's 80-pound frame with nowhere to run.

I was scared at that instant. Abbey was going to attack it, and the possum would bite and scratch and there would be blood and probably diseases and we'd have to go to the vet and what if it scratches an eye out or something equally horrible and I'd feel so bad and....

Before I could even call her, she was at the possum. She stopped a foot away and amidst the scared, angry warning growls emanating from the possum's throat, she entered a playful posture and started wagging her tail, knowing in her heart that they were now officially best friends and playtime was about to get freaking awesome.

Of course, it didn't.  I called to Abbey and she turned her head to look at me. The possum took the opportunity to bail, and playtime was over.

So anyway, that's a really long lead into what I wanted to say, which was that it happened again last night. Right before going to bed, I let Abbey out into the backyard one last time to do her business. Before I knew what was happening, I heard a rustle in the bushes and Abbey was gone.

Abbey's "Attack Pounce". A fearful beast, indeed.

Around the corner through the patio screen I saw her pounce, but due to the vegetation between us I couldn't see anything below her shoulders. That was it, the chase stopped. Abbey straightened up and looked at me through the patio screen with a concerned expression on her face, as if something had gone horribly wrong with her buddy-making plan and she needed me to fix it.

I went up to the far end of the patio, just a couple of feet from Abbey but still separated by the screen. At her feet was a lifeless possum in the dirt, just inches from the opening under the fence that it was obviously attempting to retreat to. Abbey gingerly leaned forward to smell it, looked at me with another helpless expression, and slowly took one step back.

I nervously ordered her away from it. I had no idea what had just happened.  Abbey had never killed anything, even by accident! Abbey's concern for her new best friend soon gave way to other stimulus, and she wandered off around the corner of the house to pee.  Just as she finished and turned around, the possum (who thankfully had been playing dead to avoid capture) bolted up the fence and across the yard. Abbey gave chase immediately, excited that her friend was back and ready to play.

That's it, that's the story.  See what I meant with my first blog post?  Who could possibly care about this, other than maybe three or four people. And even they were all, "Get to the point already, ass."

But I wrote it anyway, because I can.  Ha!