"Question: Do opossums carry rabies? Answer: Any mammal can get rabies. However, the chance of rabies in an opossum is EXTREMELY RARE. This may have something to do with the opossum’s low body temperature (94-97º F) making it difficult for the virus to survive in an opossum’s body."
We actually used to get those when I lived with my sister. We would see them running on the fence. One night we were in the living room and heard a racquet just outside. We went out to the back porch and the dog was sniffing at what looked like a dead opossum. It looked mangled and wasn’t moving.
We just left it out there and figured we’d dispose of it in the morning. In the morning we went out there and it was gone! The sucker had been playing dead! I always had only half believed that opossums played dead, I thought that was an old wives tale. But that opossum fooled us and the dog.