The night before my birthday, I was letting Jazzy outside for her evening trip to the outhouse, when she bolted toward the bushes in the back of the yard before scurrying back in obvious discomfort. By the time she came back to me I could already smell what was wrong... she had been skunked. I then had run to the pharmacy (thank you CVS for being open all night) for the ingredients to deskunk her. Fortunately, the procedure was succesful, and my fear that the peroxide would bleach her was unfounded.

Since then, however, I am careful to look outside for anything Jaz might want to chase. I turn on the spotlights and take a look before opening the door. Jazzy seems to have learned from the experience as well, as she carefully steps outside and sniffs the air before venturing out.
A week or so ago, as I looked outside, I saw a pathetic looking creature slowly walking in the back yard. It was a possum, and I watched it to see what it was doing, figuring it was trying to find food or something. Oddly, it didn't seem to be doing much of anything - it stopped in the middle of the yard and just layed there. Not wanting Jazzy to harm it, I opened the door and clapped my hands to scare it away. It turned towards me, hissed and made a face much like the photo above (which I borrowed from the Wikipedia entry for the animal) and then awkwardly ran away.

My initial reaction to the creature is that it has little going for it; they're slow, ugly (ever seen a possum teddy bear?), and not terribly fearsome. But it turns out that's not really true. Possums are the only North American marsupial, are nearly immune to rabies, have prehensile tails, and can of course play possum.