About this time last Sunday I was out in the back yard with the dogs. They were sniffing around the corner of the back fence. Then Max barked (oddly) a couple of times, so I called the dogs to the porch. Within minutes I noticed Max's swollen lip. And it got bigger, and he started to drip blood from his mouth.
I put Hudson in his crate, and took Max to the emergency vet. He was obedient getting in and out of the car, but moving very slowly. His face and neck continued to swell. As soon as we walked in, the vet tech said it looked like a snake bite. The vet confirmed it - Max had two puncture wounds on his snout.
Likely a copperhead, she said. They had a treatment plan for him, and would keep him overnight.
I got home, only let Hudson out on a leash, and then for only as long as necessary.
I called the vet at about 9:30 Sunday night. Max was responding well to the treatment, and was eating. Positive signs.
So I was happy to hear that, at the same time liking my back yard less and less.
Monday morning I brought Max home with two prescriptions. His face and neck were still quite swollen. I kept him away from Hudson too, knowing Hudson's tendency to play rough. All the while still afraid of my back yard.
I called Animal Control, and while the lady was nice enough, she had no advice for me other than to kill the snake.
Granted, I had hoped to do just that, but could have used a few more details. I looked online for help, and snake traps, and gave Max his medicine in peanut butter, and rotated the dogs from their crates to the yard, then quickly to the house.
Tuesday I let the dogs be together for a bit, and the instant Hudson got too close to Max, Max made a sound that then kept Hudson at the proper distance for the next two days.
Max continued to get better, and by Wednesday night had some spring back in his step.
Thursday morning I let them out to pee, off leash, and the obsessive sniffing of a patch of ground started. So I immediately called them in the house, put on boots, grabbed a shovel that was handy, and went out to see what they were sniffing.
And it was a copperhead. Two feet long or so. The adrenaline started pumping.
Fight or flight.
There really wasn't any question I was going to try to kill it. The only thing I questioned was whether I could do it with the shovel I had in my hand. I didn't think I could. But if I went to get something else, it might get away. My bypass pruning shears were just right there on the deck. They would certainly do the job.
Thus, I flighted back to the deck, grabbed the pruning shears, went back, and fighted the snakes head off.
I checked the dogs and made sure neither of them had been bit. And they had not. So the challenge had been met. The only thing left to do was to dispose of it, and, well, that was just nasty. In the big scheme of things, it was infinitely better than burying one of my dogs though.
So he was unceremoniously dumped into a trash bag and put in the bin.
But not before tweeting a picture of his decapitated copper head.
