Thursday, January 19, 2012

Dog fights snake to protect girls

Here's a story lovers of good yarns about heroic dogs will like. 
An Australian family's dog is being called a hero after it rescued two young girls from a snake attack.18-month-old River spotted a two-foot-long brown snake hiding under a children's swing just as 7-year-old Michelle Lynch and 2-year-old Kaylee were headed its way.
Go here to read the entire article.

It reminds me of a true story from my own childhood. When I was about five years old I witnessed an event, to do with a snake, I still remember clearly.

In my back yard I saw a big snake that I was later told was a water moccasin. For whatever reason, I wasn't properly afraid of it; I wanted to see it more closely. My golden cocker spaniel, Pixie, would have none of it. She barked at me and nipped at my legs to chase me back toward the porch. Then she went over to the snake in the grass and kept running circles around it, barking continuously.

Suddenly, a kid about 15 named Bud, who lived next door, came to the rescue. With a garden hoe in his hand he jumped the fence. Then he chopped the snake into pieces. Can you imagine how cool that looked to a five-year-old boy?

Later on, some of the neighborhood's old men, including my grandfather, stood around the trash barrel in the yard telling snake stories. Naturally, I took it all in. The snake remains were in the barrel. One of the men told me we ought to separate the pieces of the snake, or it could grow back together, as the sun goes down. My grandfather laughed.

By the way, Pixie suffered no injuries. Needless to say, it was no easy task getting me to come inside the house as twilight descended on the scene. I recall standing guard over the barrel, watching the chunks of that dead snake for any movement whatsoever.

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