Save Ottumwa Post July 13, 2022

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Ottumwa Publishing

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•••••JULY 13, 2022•••••

Attempted Sleeping When I was in the service, I learned how to sleep effectively. If we had the opportunity to take a break and get some sleep, we did it. A person never knew when the next time would come to catch up. To this day, I can fall asleep at night within a minute or two and stay asleep until I am rested, or the dog pokes me with his cold nose to let him outside. My wife is just the opposite. She has difficulty falling asleep and is easily awakened by any sound. When I get up in the morning, I try to keep things as quiet as possible so she can sleep a little longer.

Having a live trap for the raiding raccoons does not lend itself to keeping thing quiet in the early morning hours. It was about 5:30 Saturday morning when Billie wanted outside. Before I opened the door, I glanced down at the trap. The trap door was closed, and I could not see what was inside.

The last time I caught a raccoon, both Jag and Billie were there to help. With an upset raccoon snarling and trying to get out, a vicious terrier trying to rip the cage open, (Outdoors cont’d on pg 2)

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large poodle lending loud morel support, it was quite the cacophony, needless to say, the noise woke my wife. This day, I decided to leave the dogs inside and go check the trap. The door had barely closed behind me when Billie started barking. That was not going to work. Jag, still being in the garage, was blissfully unaware of the happenings.

Billie would have to go with me to keep him quiet, at least for the short term. Naturally, he beat me to the trap.

He barked just once and stood staring. An opossum was captured and stood staring back at Billie, as confused as was the dog. Billie did not know what to do about the animal in the cage. It did not try to fight or run, so there was no point in attacking it. I carried the trap to the edge of the timber and turned our little furry forest friend loose, to go about his day. I breathed a sigh of relief that we had solved this crisis quietly.

I walked back up to the house and turned Jag loose. He immediately scented the opossum and ran back and forth trying to track it down.

He was unsuccessful as the opossum was well off into the woods by then. At least Jag

JULY 13, 2022

was quiet about it.

That was enough to awaken my wife.

Having lost interest in It would have been the opossum, the dogs enough to wake me up, started checking the sleeping like the dead. perimeter to see if any There is a limit to how other invaders were in much a person can the area. Up by the lit- sleep, no matter how tle shed, a doe walked hard we try. out into the driveway.

Jag has learned, he can not catch a deer, so he ignores them.

Billie is convinced he needs to protect his property from them and still thinks he can catch one. I am not sure what he would do with it if he caught it, but he tries. His electronic collar limits how far he can go and a couple of deer that hang around the house seem to know where that boundary lies. Billie will run toward the deer, as far as he can go, and the deer will calmly look at him. He can only stand there and bark at them. Since she would not leave and Billie would not stop barking, I walked toward the doe trying to get her to leave so the dog would stop barking. When she finally wandered off and Billie quit barking, I headed back toward the house to enjoy my coffee. Two dogs and I had just settled in on the porch when a rabbit decided to take a short-cut across the lawn. It sounded like Ray’s a cattle stampede as Longbranch both dogs jumped up, Homemade 1/2 lb. Tenderloins barking, and chasing & Hamburgers Drakesville, IA • 722-3355 the rabbit.

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JULY 13, 2022