Yesterday evening before dinner I put the dogs out. Went out to bring them in, and Lina was doing a weird little dance: step forward, closer, closer, then jump back, and repeat. I could tell by the look on her face that she had some poor animal, a rodent I assumed. When I got a little closer I saw that it was a snake! It was coiled up on itself and was striking at her when she got too close. Being the superior animal, she was jumping back just a bit every time, then going right for it again. How did dogs ever survive in the wild?

Well I managed to drag Lina away from the joy of snake baiting and put all the dogs inside. I don't know a thing about snakes, but I took a photo of this one, compared it to photos online, and sent it to a few friends. I'm pretty sure that it's a copperhead. Eek! Apparently its bite is "very painful but not lethal," however I'm not sure if it could kill a 55 pound dog. Not to mention Nutty, who's staying with us and weighs in at only 20 lb. Jeez, I'm getting a little freaked out all over again, just thinking about what a close call the doggies had.

We didn't try to kill it because we read online that copperheads only attack when threatened, and most bites happen when people try to kill them. That makes a lot of sense, because it was clearly being threatened by Lina, but when I called her inside she ran right past it. It could easily have bitten her as she passed by, but didn't. When I came back to take the photo, I set up the tripod just a couple of feet away -- don't worry, I was wearing my sturdiest boots! and was standing a good 4 feet away, and would have run at the first sign of movement. But it didn't respond at all, just lay there trying to camoflage itself.

By the time we went back outside after posting the photos, the snake had moved on. We're going to work on the yard and see if we can find where it's living. If we do find it, we'll call someone to come get it. In the meantime we closed the gate so we can put the dogs out in the front yard (the snake was in the back). Also my friend Lisa sent me a link to a company called Critter Control who sell pet-safe snake repellant.