This true story is from a wildlife rehabber named Brenda. I love this story.
Most wild opossums and domestic ones too, live well with cats. Of course it depends on the cats and opossums. If they are aggressive animals –they won’t get along at all. However, I’ve had Sport for nearly 13 years now and he has been raised with dogs, other cats and opossums. The squirrels were a different story, he would sit for hours and watch the little squirrels, like “wow, Mom is raising my food now!!” However, my little Lizzi Beth Anne changed his mind about that!! She loved the baby squirrels and would lay right at or near their cage and let no one but me near them. Even when released, she would continue to monitor them.
One morning as my husband was leaving for work, she kept getting in his way and trying to steer him toward a large tree in the yard. Under this tree was a barrel where I would put a cage to release the squirrels from. I could still feed them until they left the area. This is where every morning she would check to see if “her” baby was ok!! Since Daddy belonged to Lizzi and was supposed to do everything she wanted, he said “OK,baby what do you want me to see?” She happily prissed (yes she walked with a definite sashay) her way to the cage, all the while looking back to make sure Daddy was right behind her. Once there, he saw that the blanket I had placed over the cage had fallen down so she couldn’t see her “baby”. Daddy repositioned the blanket and asked if this was what she wanted? She sat down and monitored the squirrel and let Daddy go to work. His job done for the day for “His” baby girl.
Knowing this, one day Sport, obviously forgetting his upbringing, came in the patio door with a squirrel in his mouth. The squirrel was dead, this didn’t matter to Lizzi, that stupid cat had one of her babies. She jumped all over Sport who dropped the squirrel and ran like his tail was on fire. Lizzi picked up the squirrel like it was a puppy, put it in her bed and covered it with her blanket using her nose. Then, without missing a beat, she went after that stupid cat like a shot, and she continued to reprimand him all day!!
I picked up the dead squirrel wrapped it in a baby blanket–put it in a cage so Lizzi could see that I was taking care of it.
That night after Lizzi finally went to sleep, I buried the squirrel and put a baby I was taking care of in the cage. She was happy to see the baby doing great the next morning and continued to check on it until release and then started her outdoor squirrel watch on her baby that she had saved from the devil cat!!
Sport, to this day, does not even look at a squirrel, even though Lizzi has long since gone over the Rainbow Bridge. He is convinced she would come back and get him. I’m not so certain she wouldn’t do just that!!
I still miss my sweet little Southern Belle,with her little white gloves and white Mary Jane’s, plume of a tail and blond curls. She was Southern to the core. A beautiful little Golden girl with a heart of the same color. She has been gone for 3 years now and not a day goes by that I don’t remember something she did that was just special Lizzi Beth Anne.
