Snakes

This morning Tasha and I let some dogs off at the vet's. When I picked them up later, I got snubbed for leaving them. Except for one dog, they climbed into the
Toyota and went to the back of the SUV without paying any attention to me. They were miffed. The only dog who would have anything to do with me was a female who had a horrible experience. Two years ago, she birthed eight beautiful puppies. They were black and white, little fluffy balls of love with dark eyes that let you see deep into their souls. At night, all eight would sleep under the part of the bed where I lay my head. We couldn't keep them, and Tasha delivered them to a heroic friend who takes in dogs and finds them good homes (she hopes!). This lady displayed the puppies and their mother at Pets' Mart. The poor mother had to watch each of her children being taken. No one wanted her because she tested positive for heartworms even though she had been treated and cured of them. When no one would buy her, Tasha asked if I wanted her back. Of course I did. That experience has made her very insecure and though she did not like the experience of being left at the vet's - I could hear her barking when I came to pick the dogs up - she did not have the confidence to snub me. She spent the trip home sitting on the passenger seat and licking my right hand. We saw a hen turkey with four poults cross the road in front of us. A lovely sight which will become rarer as dreaded development continues.
This weekend my son Hawkeye called and told me that he had seen a most unusual sight.
He drove two miles down a sand road to his favorite lake to fish and at the boat ramp had seen eight young bobcats at the garbage can there. Where did that many bobcat kittens come from?
Saturday afternoon when I returned from Tampa, I found a dead cottonmouth in the front area. The dogs had ripped it into two parts, about twenty feet from each other. It was a big, old snake as the top of it was completely black. I immediately inspected the dogs for bleeding snakebites and for any sign of swelling. I found nothing, nor were the dogs depressed as they will be after being bitten. I surmised that a dog had caught the snake crawling away from him, grabbed him by the tail, and snapped him until his back broke. Or the dog got extremely lucky and found a cottonmouth with no venom. I've read that forty percent of the time, a poisonous snake will have no venom. I would not want to rely on those odds. Whatever happened, it was a miracle that no dog was poisoned. To Be Continued