A dog, they say is man’s best friend and will always look out for you.
This has never been more true in the recent case of Benji, a Yorkshire Terrier, who alerted his owner – in a second such incident – that a snake was on the property.
Durban snake rescuer, Nick Evans, said he got a call-out from a woman in Westville – at whose home he had previously rescued a few Mozambique spitting cobras.
“This time, she hadn’t seen a snake, however, her dog, Benji, was barking at something hiding under an outside table. She immediately recognised that bark as his ‘snake bark’, as he’s generally the one who had found the cobras in the past, and yes, had been spat at before too.
“I could hear him barking wildly over the phone. Usually, I am extremely sceptical of going on calls where a snake hasn’t been seen, but knowing this dog and property, I knew I better investigate,” said Mr Evans.
By the time he got to the house, Mr Evans said, the owner had called Benji away from the outside table but was watching that nothing had slithered out from under it.
“I walked over, started recording a video with my phone, with the flash on, and held my phone down into a space, with the camera aiming under the wooden planks at the bottom, as looking in was difficult. I immediately saw some ventral (belly) scales appear on the screen, with the flash reflecting off of them. ‘Cobra’, I said, as their ventral scales are often very obvious.
“I studied the screen for a second or two longer, and realised I had clearly gone too long without seeing a black mamba, because this was no cobra. I was very relieved to find it was a non-spitting snake,” said Mr Evans.
He and his wife Joelle worked together to capture the snake that “appeared to be around 2.2m”.
“We quickly realised our estimation was off, once I started pulling it out. It was bigger than we thought. The 2.5m mamba didn’t put up too much of a resistance, and made for a relatively easy catch,” said Mr Evans.
Then thinking it was all over, the neighbour’s gardener came running in to tell them that a “big snake had slithered from that property into the one I was at”.
“‘I’ve got it,’ I told him, showing him what I was holding,” said Mr Evans – but the gardener was adamant it was not the same snake and that it was on the other side of the house.
Hurriedly putting the recently captured black mamba in a bucket, Mr Evans and his wife went to the next property to see what was going on.
“The back garden was an extension of the Palmiet Nature Reserve, and so the bush was thick, with a cliff just above the property. As expected, unfortunately, I couldn’t find the snake. However, I could hear collared sunbirds going wild at what must have been this second mamba, in the bush, close to where the gardener last saw it. It would have been quite something to have got that one too,” said Mr Evans.
He said the events had reminded him how important it was for people to understand their dogs.
“In this case, if the owner simply ignored her dog, and left it to keep going at the snake, her dog likely would have attacked the snake once it came out (as Benji couldn’t get to it where it was).
“Benji might have killed the mamba, but in doing so, would have been bitten and likely would have died as a result. We were all so grateful that that scenario didn’t unfold. Or, if the owner ignored Benji’s warnings, she could have ended up with a mamba in her home. We were all so impressed with Benji for finding the snake and alerting his owner and I do believe he got a nice dinner,” said Mr Evans.
