Snake Bitten

Well, we've had some exciting events since my last post.  All of which are worthy of a blog post (Dave Matthew's Band concert, The Masters, and a Ray LaMontagne concert at the Alabama Theatre) but none more exciting than what went down on Monday afternoon.

I drop Clancy off every morning at my parents house.  Dot, our family dog growing up (or the Matriarch, as we call her) and Clancy just romp around in the backyard.  They have become great friends.  The friendship generally consists of Dot (15 years old) barking in her beagle vibrato at Clancy (2 years old) as he runs around the fence line looking for birds - he's a spaniel.

During my lunch break, I stop by my parents house and tend to the garden, of which I am the CEO and tend to my duties very diligently (blog post coming soon).  This lunch break was one to remember.  I was pruning my tomato plants as Clancy did his normal routine along the fence line.  In between plants, I looked up to watch Clancy.  As he was walking through the grass, he jumped awkwardly.  It caught both mine and Dot's attention.  Let it be known that Dot is about 99.9% deaf and about 40% blind.  We (Dot and I) both run over to Clancy to investigate.  I discover a large snake, bowed up ready to strike at Clancy.  All the while, Dot is in hot pursuit (although she has no idea what she is pursuing).  My first concern was the 15 year old dog sprinting towards the massive snake secretly positioned in the heart of suburbia.  I grabbed Dot and then Clancy.  The problem here is that I'm holding two dogs.  One is very aware of what is going on and barking - Clancy.  The other is confused and thinks Clancy is arbitrarily angry at her - she gets mad and snaps at Clancy.  I dump the two dogs inside and yell at my Dad to inform him of the anaconda in our backyard.

Next thing on the agenda was to find the gun(s).  I had zero qualms about pulling out a rocket propelled grenade to kill this thing.  After a frantic search, we found the gun (a 22 caliber rifle - a step up from a pellet gun for those non-gun owning Barack Hussein Obama loving liberals out there).  We then make a bee line for the snakes location.  We find it.  We load the gun.  Wait.  Where are the bullets?  We run back inside.  We find the bullets.  We the re-find the snake - he's made his way beyond our fence line into the bush (as in the shrub, not the family) area behind the fence.  I take aim and squeeze the trigger.  I knew I hit it because the snake jumped up.  My Dad then gets anxious and wants to have his go at it.  We pass the gun back and forth, creating a scene more closely related to Fallujah than Homewood.  I jump the fence and take one more shot at the snake's head.  Victory.

The yellow stick pictured about is exactly 12 inches long.  That puts this Copperhead right at 24 inches.  Clancy only weighs about 20 lbs, so I'm thinking he's in for a rough ride - I prepare myself for the worst.  I come to find out that dogs have a better immune system when it comes to snake bites.  Copperheads are poisonous but nothing compared to Rattle snakes, which cause blood clots.  Coppers generally cause swelling, so infection is the largest concern.  In the event that your dog gets taken by one of these God forsaken reptiles, just feed him one milligram of benadryl for every pound he weighs (and then consult your vet). 

This is Clancy after he got nailed by the anaconda.  You could tell he was in some serious pain but he is almost back to 100%.  The picture above was taken just after we got back from the vet.  He was pitiful but doing great now.