Last night my little pomeranian, who thinks she’s a really big dog, found a possum in our back yard. She got practically nose to nose with the poor little thing, barking in it’s face while the possum just stood statue still and stared at her.

I got worried about the critter getting tired of Sassy’s noise and attacking her, so after we finally got her to come back inside I went to Google for some answers. Here are some of the interesting things I found about the opossum from The Opossum Society:

The chance of rabies in an opossum is EXTREMELY RARE. This may have something to do with the opossum’s low body temperature (94-97º F) making it difficult for the virus to survive in an opossum’s body.

Opossums are marsupials, or pouched mammals. Marsupials carry young in a pouch on the abdomen of the female. Relatives include the koala and kangaroo. The opossum holds the distinction of being North America’s only marsupial!

Opossums are beneficial: eating the harmful, unwanted pests around your home such as snails, slugs, spiders, cockroaches, rats, mice and snakes. Think of the opossum as your free gardener. The opossum is known as “Nature’s Little Sanitation Engineer” for a good reason!

Adult opossums and cats seem to have a mutual respect and leave each other alone. In general, opossums are docile, non-aggressive animals and will not attack your pets. They prefer to escape and avoid confrontations, if possible. If not, the threatened opossum may “play ‘possum”, show its teeth, or bite in self-defense, as any animal would.

A lot of that information was really good to know. I have been afraid of them since I was a teenager. My twin sister had some rabbit pens and the possums would get into them and eat the rabbits. When we would try to get the possums out of the pens, they would hiss and snarl at us and I just thought they were mean, bad tempered animals. Turns out they were much more afraid of us than we were of them.

And I sure don’t mind having them cleaning out any insects or rodents in my yard. I’ll bet the cockroach population alone could keep them happy for a week or more ! Even Holley, who doesn’t find anything cute about these critters, wouldn’t mind them passing through her back yard for a quick meal, I’ll bet.