Opposums
An opossum’s only motivation is food. If you remove the food source, they won’t be visiting your yard. Don’t leave dog food out at night. Feed your dog before dusk or after dawn and bring in the food bowl after feeding.
Don’t leave food out overnight on your kitchen floor if you have a doggie door, the opossum can smell through the door. If the opossum has learned the doggie door, block the door from dusk to dawn for 3-4 nights and the opossum will drop visiting you from its routine.
If you have a fruit tree; pick up all fallen and rotting fruit from the ground, overripe fruit attracts opossums.
Trim all tree branches and shrubbery away from the fence. Opossums do not like to walk great lengths along an open fence line, they like cover and concealment.
Keep a lid on your trash cans and pull them at least 12” away from the fence so an opossum cannot drop down into them.
Keep your gardens free of snails. Opossums eat great quantities of snails each night and they can smell them if your garden has them.
Train your dog. All dogs need basic training to save both the dog and the owner from grief during their lifetime by not understanding/obeying commands which could place the animal in a life-threatening situation. You wouldn’t turn your child loose in the house and expect them to learn for themselves what they can and cannot play with or touch. All dogs can be taught to respond to their owner’s command to “leave it” or discontinue their activity. If you feel your dog won’t listen to you, then a few sessions with a trainer will teach you how to get your dog to want to comply. Untrained dogs may attack venomous snacks, skunks, neighborhood cats or people with disastrous results for both the dog and the dog’s target. Not only can you open yourself up to lawsuits but many states are now refusing to insure a home if the owner has a certain breed of dog or too many incidents involving your dog which means you wont be able to carry a mortgage on your home. Training your dog will go a long way towards insuring no unfortunate incidents occur that could be reported back to your insurance company or the property owner’s insurance company via animal control police, police response, your neighbors or other tenants.
An even simpler solution is to bring your dog inside the house or garage at night, opossums are nocturnal and the dog will never see them. Dogs can learn to enjoy being in a crate which is like their own personal bedroom. Size of the crate will depend on the dog.
