DEJA VU AS SNAKE CATCHER HELPS SAVE BITTEN PUP
TONY Harrison never wanted to find himself in this situation again as he rushed to save a dog from a snake bite this week.
It was nearly two years to the day after two of his own dogs died after being bitten by a brown snake in the middle of the night – at the same property he rushed to on Monday. And it only happened because of a post to his community facebook page about someone seeing two dogs fighting with a snake ... at his old address.
The Gold Coast snake catcher and his partner, Brooke Smith, arrived to find the owners of the Yatala home away, so he jumped the back fence to look at the dogs, in particular ninemonth-old kelpie Ali G.
“Straight away we knew there was going to be issues,” Mr Harrison said. “We started looking at the dog and realised its eyelids were drooping. It was showing signs of being bitten.
“The problem was we didn’t have any idea who lived there. The only hint I had was a year or so ago a lady pulled us up in Robina Town Centre, a security guard there, and said ‘I live in your old house, I’ve got your mail there’.”
Owner Tegen Russell, 26, said Ali G was expected to make a full recovery after being rushed to the vet, thanks to her two saviours.
“I’ve just said to them from the bottom of my heart I cannot thank you enough,” Ms Russell said.
Queensland Ambulance urged residents to be careful because snakes were active in the warm weather.
Mr Harrison warned pet owners: “Our message is to not ignore your dogs if you think there’s been a snake involved. It was at one or two in the morning we lost our dogs. This lady would have come home from work to a dead dog.”