Cheeni, the snake catcher!

Cheeni

Narration and photography: Sangamesh Mathad

Dogs thought to have originated from an extant canid species, which were selectively bred for millennia. Cheeni, Pomeranian in breed is around 3⅟2 years old I have kept. She proved to be a very good hunter apart from a perfect watch dog in our house in the outskirts of Mysore.

A sand boa

This incident took place exactly a year ago. It was the first time she encountered a snake in my garden. It was dusk, I was sitting in my room and I heard cheeni barking. The way a dog barks, its master can easily make out what is it up to. So I stormed out. I was trying to figure out what was going on and then I saw a rat snake working its escape plan. It had coiled on one of the hibiscus plant. The plantations were quite dense there. Cheeni noticed my presence and I have no idea from where she got the guts, in a fraction of a second the rat snake was in its mouth. She was holding at almost quarter position of the snake’s body . Rat snake tried to strike the dog but cheeni started to jerk her head. Every jerk made sure that the snake hit hard to the ground. In 5 to 6 jerks  snake was half dead. She then abandoned the kill and moved away . I approached closer to get a better picture of the kill. I found 3 bike marks on the neck region and its bleeding mouth. When cheeni had caught the snake it its mouth, I was expecting it to rip its head off but it had a different method of killing it.  It was literally like hammering with snake’s head on the ground . I am pretty sure that there were many internal damages but externally I could see only few bite marks.

The kill: Spectacled Cobra 

Till date she has killed 7 snakes and we all got amazed when she encountered a spectacled cobra. She has killed 2 cobras,3 rat snake and 2 wolf snakes .her bravery has made her a celebrity in our locality . Well one afternoon my mother got a call from a neighbor saying they have a snake in their garden and asked mom to get cheeni along. As soon as I heard this I ran to their house to rescue it. Well it was a sand boa.

Cheeni, the brave!

Next time if your dog comes up with the same situation try not to get closer unless you are sure of grabbing it and taking away. Two things happen when you are close by, either the dog gets extra dose of energy and goes into a fight or might get distracted by your presence giving an opportunity for a snake bite.