Dogs and Snakes - 04/08/21
Is a dogs reaction when encountering a snake instinctive?
Seems every dog I've had goes on alert when they come across a snake.
My Border Collie, which screws with everything he finds ran into what I believe to be his first snakes yesterday.
I have a tide pool 25ft from the backdoor that he swims in everyday.
Yesterday I heard him barking, which happens seldom, I look out and he's on a rock by the edge of the pool staring intently down into the pool.
If he barks it typically means there is sumtin going on I need to check out, so I go take a look.
There were two Banded Water snakes involved in love or war, I couldn't tell which.
Half their bodies were knotted up underwater, their heads were above water and they kept biting at each other.
One was around 30 inches, the other about 45 or so.
I sat on the rock with my hound and watched, the snakes were about 3 to 4 feet away from us.
The larger snake was really going at it, every time it'd get a good hold on the smaller snake my dog would glance up at me.
Other than that, he never took his eyes off the snakes.
It surprised me he didn't jump in and grab them, almost anything that crawls, wiggles, flies or scampers falls victim to this dog.
You could tell he had no plans of screwing with these snakes.
I just find it odd for him to react that way.
After about 15 minutes of watching, the larger snake started eating the smaller one.
My dog spun and just stared at me with this 'I ain't believing this schit' look on his face.
Took the larger snake about another 15 minutes to completely woof down the smaller one then he swam away. I guess it was war, territorial or something, the ponds full of minnows and Banded Water snakes eat minnows.....and each other, apparently.
About halfway through the encounter, after the eating started, I ran in and grabbed the camera. The pics nor the video I took worked out very well, would've been great if I'd caught the battle.
The dog goes after everything in that pond, big fish come after the minnows, he chases them, blue crabs as well, he's hell on wading birds, never catches them but runs them off every time.
I did catch his first Fiddler Crab encounter on film, he learned straight away they bite but it don't stop him, how's he know the snakes can be harmful?
Seems every dog I've had goes on alert when they come across a snake.
My Border Collie, which screws with everything he finds ran into what I believe to be his first snakes yesterday.
I have a tide pool 25ft from the backdoor that he swims in everyday.
Yesterday I heard him barking, which happens seldom, I look out and he's on a rock by the edge of the pool staring intently down into the pool.
If he barks it typically means there is sumtin going on I need to check out, so I go take a look.
There were two Banded Water snakes involved in love or war, I couldn't tell which.
Half their bodies were knotted up underwater, their heads were above water and they kept biting at each other.
One was around 30 inches, the other about 45 or so.
I sat on the rock with my hound and watched, the snakes were about 3 to 4 feet away from us.
The larger snake was really going at it, every time it'd get a good hold on the smaller snake my dog would glance up at me.
Other than that, he never took his eyes off the snakes.
It surprised me he didn't jump in and grab them, almost anything that crawls, wiggles, flies or scampers falls victim to this dog.
You could tell he had no plans of screwing with these snakes.
I just find it odd for him to react that way.
After about 15 minutes of watching, the larger snake started eating the smaller one.
My dog spun and just stared at me with this 'I ain't believing this schit' look on his face.
Took the larger snake about another 15 minutes to completely woof down the smaller one then he swam away. I guess it was war, territorial or something, the ponds full of minnows and Banded Water snakes eat minnows.....and each other, apparently.
About halfway through the encounter, after the eating started, I ran in and grabbed the camera. The pics nor the video I took worked out very well, would've been great if I'd caught the battle.
The dog goes after everything in that pond, big fish come after the minnows, he chases them, blue crabs as well, he's hell on wading birds, never catches them but runs them off every time.
I did catch his first Fiddler Crab encounter on film, he learned straight away they bite but it don't stop him, how's he know the snakes can be harmful?