Silly Bullsnake Story

[ProudLib72]

So I took Ellie to the park by the lake yesterday. She likes this particular park because there is the perfect wading hole for her at one end of the lake. Yes, she is part lab. No, she does not swim. She gets in just far enough that she can lay down and get her back wet. Her little tail just flicks so hard!

Anyway, we were coming back to the parking lot when we saw a man stopped ahead on the trail. He was looking at something, scrutinizing it. About thirty feet away I could see it was a snake. I've dealt with enough snakes to know a bull snake from a rattler from thirty feet away. This fellow was a decent sized one, maybe four feet long, all stretched out in the sun. The man saw me approaching and shouted out, "There's a snake!" As I got closer, he said, "He's going to get run over" (there were some bicycles going past.) I picked up the snake and placed him in the grass out of harm's way. Then the man asked, "How did you know it wasn't a rattle snake?"

Now here's the thing: the man was standing well within five feet of the snake. His little dog was off leash, wandering around. If he didn't know for sure it wasn't a rattle snake, why the hell was that close and not afraid for his dog?

Sometimes people baffle me with their behavior.

[Solly Mack]

1. People can be a mystery.

[No Vested Interest]

2. Peopl don't know what they don't know. nt

[BigmanPigman]

3. I wouldn't even have had to think.

My automatic reaction would be to grab my dog ASAP and run. I don't know much about snakes but from what I do know you don't take a chance. That wasn't a very responsible pet parent. Poor dog.

When I was teaching one day a Marine officer who volunteered to read in my classroom couldn't make it. He told me he was in charge of some younger Marines and one was not the brightest bulb in the pack and tried to pick up a baby rattle snake on the Marine base and it bit him. Baby snakes, he told me, are even more dangerous than the adult ones. That is all my dog and I need to know. She is small and close to the ground so I have my eyes open if we are out in fields.

[ProudLib72]

4. Yes, baby rattlers are worse

They haven't learned to meter out their venom, so they just inject all of it. See, a rattler depends on venom for defense and food. It doesn't want to expend everything at once defending against an attack. In fact, a lot of bites are "dry bites", just to prove a point. But the babies don't have the control.

Bull snakes will bite, too, but they don't have venom. Usually, they just hiss and writhe around trying to escape. I once saw a bull snake on the bike trail get run over by an oblivious rider. Felt sorry for the poor snake. So now I move them.