Working from home the other day I saw an opossum in the back yard digging around. Right where the dog gets to run about on his line. I thought I'd do a little experiment and see how the dog treated random wild animals. Ya see, he's likely got some of that Evil Demon Pit Bull in him, which is supposed to make him want to kill anything that moves according to the media. From experience I know he's good with cats, infants, toddlers, small children, and adults, but thought there might be a chance he'd go wonky on the thing and kill it.
If he's got an aggression I'd like to know about it well in advance.
So, I let him out after making sure he spotted the critter through the window. He ran straight at it, sniffed it, it fell down playing dead, he sniffed it again, wandered 10 feet away, took a dump, and walked back to the door. That's about what I expected of him.
In hindsight I remembered that opossum are nocturnal and they shouldn't be out during the day. I feel like a real idiot putting my dog into that situation now.
Is just being out during the day enough reason to assume an opossum is rabid and put it down? If I march out into the yard and the thing goes into "play dead" mode should I assume it's OK and just let it be?