Part 3: Sidney & The Thing That Lives Under My Tub
Catch up by reading Part 1 or Part 2
So. We spent Thursday day playing and eating and marking the front yard with pee (well, Sid did that on his own). The day, while cool, remained dry.
Friday also dawned sunny and dry, but clouded over as the day progressed. Sid's dad called and asked if I minded keeping Sidney for another night, and bring him home the next afternoon when his mom arrived back into town. Sid said he'd suck it up and tough it out. I threw in some Salmon Yummy Chummies and leftover tri-tip to sweeten the deal, and promised Mike I'd figure out someway to make it up to him for subjecting him to d-o-g for 5 days in a row.
The day grew increasingly gloomy outside and eventually it started raining. The Thing trundled its way under my house again and climbed up under the tub. Sid heard The Thing for the first time during one of his trips accompanying me to the bathroom. I have told him I manage to go all by myself when he's not here, but he insists it is his job to make sure I don't dawdle too long by tempting me with a tennis ball.
This time, however, the ball was dropped and forgotten as Sid glued himself to the bathtub, sometimes getting in the bathtub, trying to see where The Thing was. He'd look at me, as if to ask "Where the hell is it? Don't you hear it? Can YOU see it?? I WANT IT!!!"
He spent hours there, staring at the tub, feet in, feet out, snorting and sniffing and trying to find The Thing.
He barely came out to eat, which is remarkable for a Doberman outfitted with a bottomless pit instead of a stomach with finite capacity. He could barely be enticed out by some salmon treats, scarcely allowing me enough time to photograph him in a shawl for my Lizards-in-Scarves blog. (Contrast that with Halloween a couple of years ago when he stood still for almost 30 minutes, staring intently at single small salmon cookie on the kitchen table, while his mom and I worked out how to best wrap him with rolls of gauze to create a mummy costume for a Howloween dog parade.)
Throughout the rest of the day, Sid completely ignored Sluggo's area, and didn't even try to race into the kitchen to steal lizard and tortoise food when I refreshed their food in the afternoon. Sid would occasionally run into the den to make sure I hadn't disappeared, too, and then would race back into the bathroom. Finally, much later than his usual bedtime, Sid collapsed on the couch to sleep only because The Thing finally took off on its nocturnal ramblings.
At 4 AM the next morning (I know, because I checked my clock), The Thing returned from its nightly rambles. At 4:05 AM (yes, I checked again), Sid was at his post, head in the bathtub, ears cocked, listening to The Thing. What was remarkable was not that Sid heard The Thing return, or that he raced in to watch the tub. What was remarkable was that he did it in complete silence! Not bounding down the hall, tag jangling. No excited yips. No coming to wake me up to join the fun.
In fact, he left me completely alone, even when his usual wake-Melissa-up time came around. I got up all by myself, got barely a backwards glance from him, and so went the day. He barely moved for me when I needed to get into my own bathroom, apparently believing his business was far more important than mine.
Instead of this view….
I get this view:
And so the rest of the day went: Sidney at and in the tub, tracking every move The Thing made.I think at some point The Thing started playing with Sidney, because The Thing would go quiet for a while, and then start a flurry of thumping and scratching. The Thing could hear Sidney, just as it hears me. (Yes, I have fallen into the habit of talking to The Thing, and occasionally scratching the tub in greeting when it is in residence.)
Every hour or so, Sidney would run out into the den to check on me, and then run back into the bathroom. A few times, I tried closing my bedroom door, but Sid was so distracted, not even wanting to play ball, that I gave up, knowing that it was just until the end of the day, at which time he would be going home. Besides, I'd forget the bedroom door was closed and would go walking smack into it, nose first, so I figured better Sidney be entertained by The Thing (and vice versa) than me end up in the ER with a broken nose.
When the late afternoon rolled around, I loaded Sidney's saddlebags into my car, and dragged him way from The Thing. Well, by this time he was hungry, so the combination of "Cookie!" and "Go for ride?" drew him away long enough for me to get him through a couple of doors and into the garage.
We arrived at his home shortly after his mom did, so Sidney was bouncing around, greeting both of his humans, The Thing apparently forgotten. For now.
When I got home, The Thing had settled down to its usual occasional scratching and thumbing, at a frequency and power level far less than that it engaged in when it had a doggy audience to play to--and with.
Okay, okay, I hear some of you out there chastising me for anthropomorphizing the behavior of an animal I can't even see. While most people think they most animals are stupid, and opossums are especially stupid, I think they are well equipped to live in close proximity to humans, if not particularly well versed on how to stay out of the way of moving vehicles.
(Well, let's face it, opossums and cars haven't co-existed long enough for the species to selectively breed for car avoidance. However, close observation of roadkill leads me to believe that possums aren't the only one slow to selective mates based on their car avoidance ability, so let's not point our articulated digits at these marsupials, okay? Okay.)
Anyway, I worked with possums for a while back in the day (when I was still healthy and had a real life stretching out into my future), and I quite like their nearly hairless prehensile tail, coarse guard hairs, those lovely Grand Teton-like teeth, and their wonderful grasping hands. Feet. Whatever.
Here I am in the still-healthy days, with Stevie (moluccan cockatoo), Koji (our rescued akita who developed KVH which, among other things, turned his all black face and ears white), and another Mikey, an opossum born without eyes, found wandering a Los Angeles-area golf course when it was about 7 months of age, from where it ended up with me before going to an opossum rescue.
While they don't have the largest of brains in their relatively small (compared to body size) heads, individual opossums learn the two square miles or so that comprise their personal territory, developing daily and seasonal routines that include the best places to sleep and hang out during the day, the houses that have food available (intentionally or otherwise), which yards with dogs to avoid and when.
Let's take, for example the dog that lives behind me. She is generally very quiet unless she somehow gets through the fence into my yard, at which point she runs back and forth, whining, trying to get a human to rescue her and get her back on her side of the fence. So, I rarely hear her, despite her having lived there for 10 years or so.
Tonight I became aware of a pounding and scraping noise coming from my backyard, from the area of the 8 ft tall wooden fence between my backyard and my neighbor's. Alarmed at the thought that the dog has gotten trapped somehow in between the fence slats, I grab a flashlight, slip on some shoes and head outside. As I shine the light along the fence line and through my yard, I realize that the dog is on her side of the fence, jumping at it, scratching at it in an attempt to climb it, barking and yipping with increasing frustration.
Ah. The light dawns.
No, not the sun coming out at 6 PM. What dawns is the thought that the usually nice quiet doggy is frantically trying to get at something in the tree next to the fence in her yard. So I make my way to the fence and shine the light up, and there The Thing is!
Can you see me?
How about now?
Sitting calmly on top of the fence, front paws resting on the horizontal crossbeam in the neighbor's yard, the butt and tail hanging over my side of the fence. The possum is just hanging out, watching the dog go crazy.
I go back inside my house and get my camera to try to snap a few photos of The Thing before s/he/it disappears. No worries, as The Thing is still hanging out, relaxed, watching the dog bouncing and slamming into the fence and yipping.
I start shooting photos of The Thing, using my flash. Does The Thing leave? Nope. S/he/it stays there, just turning its head away from the flash while I apologize for said flash and shoot another photo. (Apparently, I'm not that sorry.) While I'm shooting and moving around trying to get a better shot, I talk to The Thing, figuring if it is indeed MY Thing, s/he/it'll recognize my voice.
The Thing could easily leave the fence and the annoying dog if it wanted to. It could walk along the fence in either direction, dismounting into any of the other five yards, including mine (after I went back into the house, of course). Instead, The Thing stayed there, watching the dog go crazy, for another 20-30 minutes. At that time, the dog-going-crazy noises stopped, so The Thing either took off, or the dog's humans finally realized something was going on and so dragged her indoors. All together, The Thing was there for almost an hour, based on the amount of time the dog was literally bouncing off the wall.
We have been having a glorious week of warm sunny days and cool nights, and so the tub has been silent as The Thing sleeps outdoors or wherever it sleeps when it isn't escaping the rain by hanging out under my tub. The weather is supposed to change later this week, at which time I expect noises in my tub will signal the return of The Thing That Lives Under The Tub.
It's Baack!
Oop! I was wrong. In the few days that lapsed between my writing of this article and the final formatting and inserting photos, The Thing returned to its hangout under my tub yesterday, despite the temperatures being sunny and mild. I talked to it, scratched the tub in welcome, and heard it quietly move around as the day moved into evening. Could it have missed the company? Was it looking for a little entertainment, checking to see if The Dog was back so it could goof on it? I don't know.
While many of you out there are yelling "of course not, you idiot!" at your computer monitors, the ethologist in me says, why not? Play behaviors have been documented in other species, and between species, so why not a playful opossum for whom the hours stretch long without a dog to safely drive crazy now and then?
Catch up by reading Part 1 or Part 2
The entire article is online as a single PDF document if you would like to save or print it
So. We spent Thursday day playing and eating and marking the front yard with pee (well, Sid did that on his own). The day, while cool, remained dry.
Friday also dawned sunny and dry, but clouded over as the day progressed. Sid's dad called and asked if I minded keeping Sidney for another night, and bring him home the next afternoon when his mom arrived back into town. Sid said he'd suck it up and tough it out. I threw in some Salmon Yummy Chummies and leftover tri-tip to sweeten the deal, and promised Mike I'd figure out someway to make it up to him for subjecting him to d-o-g for 5 days in a row.
The day grew increasingly gloomy outside and eventually it started raining. The Thing trundled its way under my house again and climbed up under the tub. Sid heard The Thing for the first time during one of his trips accompanying me to the bathroom. I have told him I manage to go all by myself when he's not here, but he insists it is his job to make sure I don't dawdle too long by tempting me with a tennis ball.
This time, however, the ball was dropped and forgotten as Sid glued himself to the bathtub, sometimes getting in the bathtub, trying to see where The Thing was. He'd look at me, as if to ask "Where the hell is it? Don't you hear it? Can YOU see it?? I WANT IT!!!"
He spent hours there, staring at the tub, feet in, feet out, snorting and sniffing and trying to find The Thing.
He barely came out to eat, which is remarkable for a Doberman outfitted with a bottomless pit instead of a stomach with finite capacity. He could barely be enticed out by some salmon treats, scarcely allowing me enough time to photograph him in a shawl for my Lizards-in-Scarves blog. (Contrast that with Halloween a couple of years ago when he stood still for almost 30 minutes, staring intently at single small salmon cookie on the kitchen table, while his mom and I worked out how to best wrap him with rolls of gauze to create a mummy costume for a Howloween dog parade.)
Throughout the rest of the day, Sid completely ignored Sluggo's area, and didn't even try to race into the kitchen to steal lizard and tortoise food when I refreshed their food in the afternoon. Sid would occasionally run into the den to make sure I hadn't disappeared, too, and then would race back into the bathroom. Finally, much later than his usual bedtime, Sid collapsed on the couch to sleep only because The Thing finally took off on its nocturnal ramblings.
At 4 AM the next morning (I know, because I checked my clock), The Thing returned from its nightly rambles. At 4:05 AM (yes, I checked again), Sid was at his post, head in the bathtub, ears cocked, listening to The Thing. What was remarkable was not that Sid heard The Thing return, or that he raced in to watch the tub. What was remarkable was that he did it in complete silence! Not bounding down the hall, tag jangling. No excited yips. No coming to wake me up to join the fun.
In fact, he left me completely alone, even when his usual wake-Melissa-up time came around. I got up all by myself, got barely a backwards glance from him, and so went the day. He barely moved for me when I needed to get into my own bathroom, apparently believing his business was far more important than mine.
Instead of this view….
I get this view:
And so the rest of the day went: Sidney at and in the tub, tracking every move The Thing made.I think at some point The Thing started playing with Sidney, because The Thing would go quiet for a while, and then start a flurry of thumping and scratching. The Thing could hear Sidney, just as it hears me. (Yes, I have fallen into the habit of talking to The Thing, and occasionally scratching the tub in greeting when it is in residence.)
Every hour or so, Sidney would run out into the den to check on me, and then run back into the bathroom. A few times, I tried closing my bedroom door, but Sid was so distracted, not even wanting to play ball, that I gave up, knowing that it was just until the end of the day, at which time he would be going home. Besides, I'd forget the bedroom door was closed and would go walking smack into it, nose first, so I figured better Sidney be entertained by The Thing (and vice versa) than me end up in the ER with a broken nose.
When the late afternoon rolled around, I loaded Sidney's saddlebags into my car, and dragged him way from The Thing. Well, by this time he was hungry, so the combination of "Cookie!" and "Go for ride?" drew him away long enough for me to get him through a couple of doors and into the garage.
We arrived at his home shortly after his mom did, so Sidney was bouncing around, greeting both of his humans, The Thing apparently forgotten. For now.
When I got home, The Thing had settled down to its usual occasional scratching and thumbing, at a frequency and power level far less than that it engaged in when it had a doggy audience to play to--and with.
Okay, okay, I hear some of you out there chastising me for anthropomorphizing the behavior of an animal I can't even see. While most people think they most animals are stupid, and opossums are especially stupid, I think they are well equipped to live in close proximity to humans, if not particularly well versed on how to stay out of the way of moving vehicles.
(Well, let's face it, opossums and cars haven't co-existed long enough for the species to selectively breed for car avoidance. However, close observation of roadkill leads me to believe that possums aren't the only one slow to selective mates based on their car avoidance ability, so let's not point our articulated digits at these marsupials, okay? Okay.)
Anyway, I worked with possums for a while back in the day (when I was still healthy and had a real life stretching out into my future), and I quite like their nearly hairless prehensile tail, coarse guard hairs, those lovely Grand Teton-like teeth, and their wonderful grasping hands. Feet. Whatever.
Here I am in the still-healthy days, with Stevie (moluccan cockatoo), Koji (our rescued akita who developed KVH which, among other things, turned his all black face and ears white), and another Mikey, an opossum born without eyes, found wandering a Los Angeles-area golf course when it was about 7 months of age, from where it ended up with me before going to an opossum rescue.
While they don't have the largest of brains in their relatively small (compared to body size) heads, individual opossums learn the two square miles or so that comprise their personal territory, developing daily and seasonal routines that include the best places to sleep and hang out during the day, the houses that have food available (intentionally or otherwise), which yards with dogs to avoid and when.
Let's take, for example the dog that lives behind me. She is generally very quiet unless she somehow gets through the fence into my yard, at which point she runs back and forth, whining, trying to get a human to rescue her and get her back on her side of the fence. So, I rarely hear her, despite her having lived there for 10 years or so.
Tonight I became aware of a pounding and scraping noise coming from my backyard, from the area of the 8 ft tall wooden fence between my backyard and my neighbor's. Alarmed at the thought that the dog has gotten trapped somehow in between the fence slats, I grab a flashlight, slip on some shoes and head outside. As I shine the light along the fence line and through my yard, I realize that the dog is on her side of the fence, jumping at it, scratching at it in an attempt to climb it, barking and yipping with increasing frustration.
Ah. The light dawns.
No, not the sun coming out at 6 PM. What dawns is the thought that the usually nice quiet doggy is frantically trying to get at something in the tree next to the fence in her yard. So I make my way to the fence and shine the light up, and there The Thing is!
Can you see me?
How about now?
Sitting calmly on top of the fence, front paws resting on the horizontal crossbeam in the neighbor's yard, the butt and tail hanging over my side of the fence. The possum is just hanging out, watching the dog go crazy.
I go back inside my house and get my camera to try to snap a few photos of The Thing before s/he/it disappears. No worries, as The Thing is still hanging out, relaxed, watching the dog bouncing and slamming into the fence and yipping.
I start shooting photos of The Thing, using my flash. Does The Thing leave? Nope. S/he/it stays there, just turning its head away from the flash while I apologize for said flash and shoot another photo. (Apparently, I'm not that sorry.) While I'm shooting and moving around trying to get a better shot, I talk to The Thing, figuring if it is indeed MY Thing, s/he/it'll recognize my voice.
The Thing could easily leave the fence and the annoying dog if it wanted to. It could walk along the fence in either direction, dismounting into any of the other five yards, including mine (after I went back into the house, of course). Instead, The Thing stayed there, watching the dog go crazy, for another 20-30 minutes. At that time, the dog-going-crazy noises stopped, so The Thing either took off, or the dog's humans finally realized something was going on and so dragged her indoors. All together, The Thing was there for almost an hour, based on the amount of time the dog was literally bouncing off the wall.
We have been having a glorious week of warm sunny days and cool nights, and so the tub has been silent as The Thing sleeps outdoors or wherever it sleeps when it isn't escaping the rain by hanging out under my tub. The weather is supposed to change later this week, at which time I expect noises in my tub will signal the return of The Thing That Lives Under The Tub.
It's Baack!
Oop! I was wrong. In the few days that lapsed between my writing of this article and the final formatting and inserting photos, The Thing returned to its hangout under my tub yesterday, despite the temperatures being sunny and mild. I talked to it, scratched the tub in welcome, and heard it quietly move around as the day moved into evening. Could it have missed the company? Was it looking for a little entertainment, checking to see if The Dog was back so it could goof on it? I don't know.
While many of you out there are yelling "of course not, you idiot!" at your computer monitors, the ethologist in me says, why not? Play behaviors have been documented in other species, and between species, so why not a playful opossum for whom the hours stretch long without a dog to safely drive crazy now and then?
Catch up by reading Part 1 or Part 2
The entire article is online as a single PDF document if you would like to save or print it
posted by Melissa at 2:26 PM
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