Playing possum

I would be significantly more alert today if my dog were a better communicator--or if I had a handy phrase book to help translate her urgent messages.

All dogs, of course, occasionally feel the need to convey urgent messages in the middle of the night. Since Hopeful lives outdoors, her communiques generally involve interlopers: deer chomping on the sweet potatoes, raccoons ravaging the corn. She'll bark for a little while until the threat dissipates, and then she'll stop. It's easy to ignore that kind of message.

Last night, though, she didn't stop--and she had help, too. Her best dogfriend, Duke, was over for a visit, and even though he's a gimpy old gentleman incapable of pursuing whatever is causing the disturbance, he does like to get his barks in. Late last night (or early this morning) Hopeful and Duke set up a message relay team: we could hear Hopeful's high-pitched yaps in the distance and Duke's deep growly rowlfs right outside our bedroom window.

And they just wouldn't quit.

It's probably nothing, we agreed. Probably just some dumb critter causing all this ruckus. Unlikely to be a human intruder way down by the creek, right? Probably nothing.

But they just kept barking.

Finally, the hubby threw on some clothes, grabbed a flashlight, and wandered out to see why the dogs were dialling 911. Down by the creek he found Hopeful barking her fool head off at what at first appeared to be an inert lump of road kill.

On closer inspection it turned out to be a possum...playing possum.

Garry grabbed a stick and flicked the possum into the creek, where it emerged from its stupor just long enough to hustle back onto dry land--and then it curled up again and played dead. He tried to convince Hopeful that the possum posed no real threat to anyone, but it's difficult to deter a dog on a mission, no matter how foolhardy that mission might be.

Hopeful kept barking. Duke kept relaying Hopeful's message right into our bedroom window. And the possum kept playing possum.

I envied the possum's ability to disregard the dogs' messages, and I really wanted to emulate the possum's ability to assume a slumber so deep it resembled death. But instead of playing possum, I just had to lie there and listen while the dogs told me all about it.

And now I'm telling you. Mission accomplished.