Ok, I get it, dog, you're a coonhound!

Oh my god.  I'm awake at 1:31 a.m. because Roger let the dogs out to pee and Rye massacred a possum in the backyard.  And I guess after he shook the crap out of it, Roger told him to drop it, and he did right away, because he would apparently make an amazing hunting dog if we would actually take him hunting.  So the possum made its way into the corner of our yard, behind the shed and under a bunch of logs and crap, and Rye cornered it and barked.  And barked.  And barked.  And barked.  And barked.  At which point I woke up and realized something must be very wrong, because he was barking his friggin' head off in the backyard, enough to wake me up inside the house.  So I threw on some shoes and ran outside, and there's Rye, standing his ground behind the shed and barking his head off because hey!  He treed that possum, by golly, and there was no way in hell he was gonna let it get away.

We ran inside and got a leash, and some treats, and Roger had his flashlight, and I was able to hook a leash on his collar and drag him out from behind the shed.  He was actually very, very good.  He wanted to make sure everyone in the East Bay knew that that possum was TREED and he did it, but when I told him to come to me, he did, albeit very reluctantly.  Then we got him inside and Roger was finally able to tell me what the hell was going on (because at that point, all I knew was that I had just been woken up by Rye barking a lot, and there was apparently something hiding behind the shed), and we could see that the little guy had a little bitty spot of blood on the side of his snout.  So we swabbed it with some iodine and gave him lots of treats and told him what a good hound dog he was and put him in his crate to help him settle down.  He actually was really, surprisingly good, all things considered, just visibly preoccupied by the one thought he can successfully hold in his little coonhound brain: there is an animal in my yard that I cannot let escape.

So now he's asleep, but we called the emergency vet to make sure we were safe on rabies.  Apparently the only animals in the Bay Area that ever carry rabies are bats (good to know!) and especially since Rye just had his rabies booster last month, he should be totally and completely fine even if the thing did have rabies, since he apparently didn't get bit (he just attacked and shook the crap out of the thing) and his vaccine would have protected him anyway.

Holy moly.  How am I ever going to get back to sleep?

It's funny, though; I had just been thinking this past week about how I might want to rename my blog.  I mean, really, they're not actually the only coonhounds in Berkeley.  That was just a commentary on the fact that not many people in the Bay Area move out here with coonhounds.  But I guess Rye ain't havin' none of that.