Now that's something you don't see every day

Today while out for my run I encountered a most unusual scene. As I ran through a typical suburban neighborhood I came upon a groundhog sitting in the road. He wasn't in the middle of the road but rather off to one side. I soon noticed that there was a cat crouched there as well and quickly came to the conclusion that the groundhog had been in the yard and the cat (whose yard this was) probably chased him into the street and now there was a bit of a stand off. I gave them both a wide berth as I had no interest in getting involved in the skirmish. However, as I passed them I noticed that while the cat was crouched in attack position the groundhog didn't seem tense in the least. In fact, he was slowly going around and around in circles in one spot in the street. I continued to watch the animals as I ran along and realized that the cat wasn't so much in defense mode as I originally assumed but rather had more of a "what the hell" kind of look on his face as I'm sure I did, too, at this point as the groundhog's behavior was rather mystifying... just going around and around. Since I didn't want to stop running I had to focus on watching the pavement so as to avoid falling in my face (been there, done that). As I left the animals behind I decided that perhaps the groundhog had been in the street, gotten clipped by a car, and was a bit loopy as a result.

Now you might think all of that is bizarre enough but wait, there's more! I returned to the same intersection 20 minutes or so later in my run to find the groundhog still in the same spot, still going around and around in circles. Only this time he was accompanied by two police officers instead of the house cat. Yes, TWO police officers and one squad car. The officers were just standing there, one on each side of him, watching him spin in circles. The groundhog seemed oblivious to the officers. Once again, I didn't stop to investigate further but I can guess that they probably weren't there to arrest him. I surmised that someone probably thought that the groundhog might be rabid, given his strange behavior. Or perhaps they were simply worried that he was going to eventually go after the cat. After hypnotizing him with the spinning. Regardless, it was reassuring to know that the local police can be counted on to keep the eccentric groundhog population under control.