Deputy Mac Ohm caught the call Tuesday night.
"Some kind of rabid animal. Possibly a woodchuck," the Douglas County Sheriff's Office log read. "Hovering outside door and garage. Right by garbage cans at the front."
Ohm responded to the residence along North 76th Street in the village of Superior, one of numerous homes built where Stardusk Drive-In used to be.
It wasn't a woodchuck.
"I arrived on scene and realized it was a ondatra zibethicus," Ohm reported.
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What?
A muskrat, according to Google.
Muskrats are small, brown-furred aquatic rodents with long, rat-like tails that live both in and out of the water along most Wisconsin waterways, according to the DNR. Mostly nocturnal, they tend to stay close to their lodges or burrows, and eat mostly plants that grow along the water's edge. They're about half the size of a beaver.
This particular muskrat had blood near its mouth area and was making hissing noises.
"I attempted to roust it," Ohm reported. "It started becoming agitated. Due to its apparent injuries and unwillingness to leave, I dispatched it with a long handled ice chisel provide by the RP (reporting party)."
