Wildlife, British Style

I have a new paw pal named Indie who just posted about wild animals they have in London. (Yes, London; I'm all sophisticated and global now.) I've decided that I do not want to run across a fox. Too many sharp teeth. But at least it doesn't look like an animal whose creation went horribly awry when God stepped out of the room to mediate a feud between the cows and the sheep or something.

My humans were pleased to learn that fox hunting has been banned in the UK. "Tally ho!" they cried. Whatever that means. I'll say it again, humans are weird. But mine love animals, and they give Molly and me lots of food and scratches and play-animals, so we tolerate their little idiosyncrasies.

The other creatures Indie pictured were familiar -- a pigeon and a squirrel. I find that comforting. It's nice to know that if my humans picked up and moved to London -- which I understand is quite a long way from here, across some sort of pond or other -- I could still chase squirrels! (Yes, I enjoy chasing squirrels, partly because I suspect they like it, too.)

Thanks, Indie, it is nice to know that others have strange creatures in their yards, too!

Mission: Impossumible

The other evening we were out for our evening constitutional when we espied an odd creature scurrying along the fence (in the yard next to ours, thank goodness -- ahem, I mean, more's the pity). At first my female human thought it was a sick cat or perhaps something called a raccoon, but it turned out to be God's mistake again. I presume it's the same one. I knew Molly was worthless!

This time it climbed a tree. Yes, this complete freak of nature CAN CLIMB TREES. This is not good. Now I'll have to look up all the time to make sure some Ninja possum isn't hurtling down on me, hell-bent on revenge. Because despite the fact that all of its humiliation and rage can be traced directly to Molly, I'm sure that it will be me it will land on. After all, I'm much smaller than the bloated rabble-rouser Molly, and I'm guessing that a strict eye-for-an-eye policy isn't necessarily a major character trait of the Ninja possum.

Playing Possum?

The other night I was sleeping peacefully, as usual, when I was disturbed by a ruckus outside. It was Molly, going crazy barking at something. I couldn't make out everything she was saying, but the gist was along the lines of "Who are you?! What do you want here?!" Only more incoherent.

My male human was outside with her and he came in to get a flashlight. My female human asked what was going on and he said Molly had something cornered. A few minutes later he came back in for the camera. (I enjoy that they do this for me, though I wish I could operate it; their pictures often leave much to be desired.) He said it was a possum. My female human remarked that it was three o'clock in the morning (the significance of that remark escaped me, but she didn't seem happy about it) but she got up.

Here is the sight that greeted us, and I ask you, is this something to be awakened for? I thought I was having a nightmare.


Molly ran at it (it was holed up inside a cinderblock affair) and the humans yelled, "Molly, no!" so she backed off. That was enough for me. I waited on the steps until they were finished staring at it. I'm not sure what the fascination was; I personally do not find it edifying in the least to ogle God's mistakes. Especially when they come with sharp teeth.

If this is what they mean when they say "playing possum," I admit that I don't really see the playfulness. But who knows what humans mean when they say anything?

I just wanted to go back to bed and forget that such creatures even exist. Thankfully, we haven't seen it since. I guess Molly's good for something, after all.