Stinky Pete

Earlier this month, Ben was running his usual Sunday route and he sadly discovered that a mama opossum was killed on the road. To add to his sorrow, several of her babies were also hit as well. All of her babies had already died except for one little guy that clung to his dead mama's back. Ben knew at once that he had to save the lone survivor and ran the last mile home with the little guy in his hand. I decided to give him the name Pete, which later turned into Stinky Pete, because opossums are quite odorous!  

Here he is right after Ben brought him home.  It had rained earlier in the morning so Pete was very wet and pretty sad looking.

 After a bath and some food, Pete was feeling better and looking cuter.  

 We took the opportunity to train Laney to sit still by placing Pete on her back.

After a week of feeding him, we decided he was ready to be on his own.  Laney was very interested in his release.

I wanted to hold him one last time before we let him go.  It's not every day you can hold a baby opossum.

Freedom!

Laney saying goodbye. 

Pete hiding in our brush pile.  We hope he stays around, but we haven't seen him since we let him go.

 Goodbye Pete!  It was fun having you for a short visit.