Snakes

A couple of weeks ago, while Doug and I were in Birmingham for a doctor's appointment, we got a call from my sister telling us that her husband had found a snake in between our screen door and door when he went to feed the dogs. 

The next day Doug dropped me off at work and went home with plans to mow the grass.  But when he picked up the gas can, he found another snake.  He killed it and then took pictures so that we could get it identified to make sure it was indeed a rattlesnake like we guessed.  I think we were both hoping it would be some kind of rat snake.  I mean it's bad enough to have a snake problem, but why do we get so lucky as to have a poisonous snake problem!

Our snake was identified as a rattlesnake and after a little bit of research I found out that they are born in groups of 5-20.  We let all of our neighbors know so that everyone would be paying attention.  Then we got some Snake-Away to put out around the house.  As much as I want the snakes gone, I was afraid the Snake-Away might be harmful for our dogs so I wouldn't let Doug put any in the backyard.  The next day a couple down the street found another snake in their carport.

Since then, we've been pretty vigilant, but we haven't seen anymore.

That is, until last night. 

I wasn't feeling very good so after dinner we went and got ready for bed so that I could sleep while Doug watched the Auburn game.  We brought the dogs inside for the night, but they were restless and Callie kept ringing the bell (yes, our dogs ring a bell when they want to go outside!) so Doug decided to let them back out for a little while since he was going to be up anyway. 

It wasn't long before we heard Callie barking like crazy.  She barks for lots of reasons, like people passing by, other dogs wandering the neighborhood, frogs in the backyard....  So Doug got up and looked out the window to see what was going on.  He could tell that all three of the dogs were surrounding something and snapping at it so he grabbed some shoes and a flashlight and ran outside to see what it was.  The next thing I know Doug's knocking on the side of the house with the flashlight and telling me to get the door. 

I opened the door somewhat hesitantly because I wasn't sure exactly what was going on.  Doug told me to get the dogs in and with a little bit of his help we got them all inside, even though they really wanted to be outside.  That's when Doug tells me what's going on.  When he got outside, Levi picks up a snake and comes running towards him.  Doug told him to leave it and thank goodness, he dropped the snake.  Doug said that Levi had killed the snake, that it's head was separate from it's body so we weren't worried about the snake going anywhere.

We looked the dogs over and didn't see any signs of snake bites so we put them in their kennels and Doug went outside to get rid of the snake.  I decided to turn on our computer so I could find out what the symptoms of a bite were just in case one of the dogs did get bitten and we just missed it.  While I was waiting on the computer I looked out the window and saw the snake laying in the grass, but didn't see Doug anywhere.  And that's when the dead snake started moving.  I was ready to run out the door to warn Doug when I saw his shovel come around the side of the house.  He had been right around the corner where I couldn't see him but he saw the snake moving too, and after a couple of swings the snake was really dead :)

When he came back inside, I asked if he was okay.  He kinda played dumb, not knowing that I had seen the whole thing, acting like the snake had been dead already.  When I told him that I saw it moving he told me that what he originally thought was the head separated from the body turned out to be the middle of the snake! 

Just call him Doug, The Snake Hunter :)