On Dogs, Snake Bites, Chance and Cornering With Life

Permit me the self-indulgence, it is the weekend. This is an altered version of a post from last year, one received so well it moved me deeply.

Jason

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Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Ferris Bueller

I might add: “Or it could end up biting you.

I got a life lesson not long ago, one that I won’t forget, and I guess I felt the need to share, because it applies to all of us.

Ferris had it right. Life does move fast, and though one need to stop and look around, that isn’t always an option. In some instances “looking around” might come back to bite you, Ferris might say “you also best learn to corner pretty fast.”

As most of you have come to know, I live in the deep south. When I say “deep,” I mean one could walk the distance needed to get deeper and then drown. We live fifty miles form the Gulf Coast, in … please bear with me, Mississippi.

We moved down here from the Northwest, my beloved Northwest, Washington, to be precise. We could practically walk to my other love, Canada, the place of my birth.

My beloved wife (lotta love in my life) is from Mississippi, her grandmother lives here. Granny is 87 now and near wheel chair bound. She, has no one anymore and was all alone. I loved the Northwest, I love her more.

And so it was that I found myself in charge of managing her massive property. We are certainly not suffering, giant house, and her place is 160 acres of pure beauty. I manage the timber, and keep a few acres around the home gorgeous. It is not hard. In particular, I love the small lake that sits about 200 yards from the back door, packed with giant bass. My daughter and I cheat, we use minnows, and have fishing derbies. Two fish each, largest fish wins. The derby takes about ten minutes. No fish are hurt in the exercise, they’re pissed when getting thrown back in the water.

The only trouble is this place isn’t just stuffed with beauty and fish, it is infested with every type of poisonous snake known to North America. I am petrified of snakes generally, and I am highly allergic to poisonous snake breath. My daughter isn’t too wild about them either. But she plays with her friends outside far more than I play outside with anyone or anything.

Thus it is that that I mow the ever living shit out of the place near the house. I mow it tighter than a greenskeeper at a golf course. Your fairway would be jealous. Obviously, I want to be able to see anything coming from 100 yards away, and I can, for the most part.

My daughter also loves her Northwest, it was all she had ever known, having lived there since age two. My eleven year old loves her Starbucks muffin, her modern movie theaters, her fleece vest, hiking boots, all that. She most definitely didn’t want to move.

Part of the bribe to get her excited about moving here was the promise of a puppy. My old dog checked out at age 15, weeks before the move. He had been with me longer than the girls. He hurt badly, bad hips, a retriever. He looked at me with a message: “I’ve done my job, time for you to show you can make it on your own, boss.”

My daughter got her puppy about a month after moving here.

The puppy is a mix, his parent’s weren’t married. He is mostly black lab, some Australian sheperd thrown in, and a tiny bit of some kind of hound. That is a picture of him above, he is beautiful. And huge.

Sky’s problem is he’s about as alpha as a dog comes. He had it in his head that he was boss of his new pack. The attitude worked with my daughter and wife. It did not work with me. We came to an understanding. He would defer to me, but only if he was my dog. My daughter understood, and she’ll still get her gentle puppy soon enough.

Onward.

As you might have guessed, it gets hot as fck here in the summer. It had been so hot that I had let the outer lawn, the bit farther away from the house, get a little longer than normal, and concentrated on the grass right near the place.

Out of nowhere, a day in mid August (part of why we’re revisiting this), surprised us with being blessedly mild. the type that just don’t happen here. “Mild” is relative, the high got to 86 or so. I determined that if I was ever going to mow the whole place, all the way down to the lake, all 3-4 acres, it had to be that day.

I am a moron. I wear flip flops, even mowing.

The grass down below had grown fairly long, and I rode along in my riding mower thinking about everything but what I was doing. From the front right side of the mower came a water moccasin, hauling its ass, probably terrified of the thunder of the motor and just trying to get the hell away. He cornered fast, to the wrong corner.

Thing is, most people never see a poisonous snake moving fast. They mostly hide when steps come around them. When they slither in fifth gear, they practically glide on top of the grass. The “top of the grass” to the right front side had not been mowed yet, and thus the “top of the side” put him at about the level of my flip flop. I nearly shit my pants.

Instead of that, I lifted my flip flops, because that’s what you do, right? Well, yes, but not if you want your riding lawnmower to get the hell away from it, because lifting your flip flops stops the damn mower. By the grace of dog, the snake that could have easily have struck my foot with its nose, and fangs, instead cornered down, around the side of the blade protection, and popped up the other side of the mower, still moving. Bad move.

I cornered and mowed that thing under fast. Look, I don’t like to kill, I really don’t. But I don’t like snakes that slither around near where my daughter plays and fishes.

Nature can be cruel, too.

I made a critical mental note. “Be careful, cooler day, lawnmower all over the damn place, the snakes will be on the move.”

An hour later, I finished up. I put the lawnmower in the barn and wanted to refresh the dogs’ water. My puppy was being raised by granny’s 16 year old, tiny, female farm dog. I couldn’t see either of them. Strange, since they normally greet me anywhere.

Something made me look for them, I don’t know what. They often goof around together, all over the place. I cornered around the house. They were looking for me. Slowly. Both sat down, side by side and stared at me, the old tiny girl and the puppy towering over here. That never happens, either. The old girl mostly considers him a pest. Both looked me right in the eye. Both conveyed a message. The tiny old girl said: “Something is wrong with my 105 lb baby.” The big alpha puppy’s message was clearer: “Please help me.”

I called them. He could barely move, bad limp. I went to him, hoping to see a thorn or something stuck, something I could move quickly. Instead, I felt a paw that was at least double the size of the other, already oozing clear liquid. Snake bite.

He surely stepped on it, probably never saw it, because, being a puppy, having an animal hurt him, him seeing it? It would have been deader than a fried pork chop at that point, and he would be bit 5 times, chest and mouth, in the process.

I flung my shirt off, tied a tourniquet – not too tight, as they always say – and screamed for my wife, who came rushing outside It was 5:00 p.m., on a Friday. She called the vet, one was still in the office, minutes away from leaving: “Bring him in, now.”

We live 15 minutes from town, a town of 3,000. My daughter came with me and held ice against Sky’s paw. I briefly thanked God above, whom I often question his existence, for the fact that it wasn’t my daughter bit, or me, and that a vet was available.

We got him there: “What kind of snake?” She asked. “Fuck if I know” I said, not using that southern Biblical language. She worried. “It is bad enough now, it could well have been a diamondback, he’ll die without anti-venom, but it’s expensive. We can try steroids and see how he does.”

“How much is the anti-venom?”

“$850.”

I didn’t have that in my pocket, or my bank account at the time, I’m a writer for godsake, it’s my job to be poor.

“Give it to him.”

She nodded in agreement.

Turns out, we surely saved his life without regard for the type of snake, because whatever bit him had enough power to swell up the paw enough that it got infected. He spent two weeks in dog hospital, fighting off the infection, barely alive.

He lived. But, life’s taught him that he ain’t quite as alpha as he thought.

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Life moves pretty fast.

Within the course of one hour, just one, I went from enjoying a beautiful rare day, working hard, to damn near getting bit myself. A snake’s decision to corner down right, instead of level left, saved my foot from swelling and pain. Only an instinct in me told me something wasn’t right, that my puppy and the old girl weren’t there to meet me. I went right instead of left, around the house, and found them fast. I am not sure he could’ve walked to corner left, and I might’ve gone in.

I knew to tie a tourniquet. The vet had been within minutes of leaving, only there to finish paperwork. Sure, she would have come back, but it might’ve taken 30 minutes to get the message and meet me. He might not have had that long. His infection was near impossible to manage, and he near cornered to dog heaven, where my old saint would’ve joined him. My daughter got a life lesson, how to corner fast, how quickly everything can change, best appreciate all one has now.

What does this have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. Except that Ferris sure did have it right.

Someone learned their child had cancer yesterday, someone died in a car accident they had no reason to expect. A dog died.

We are guaranteed nothing tomorrow, appreciate today, and be ready to move, fast, hopefully around the right corner.

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Peace, y’all. I don’t care if only ten people read this article, sometimes just writing can be cathartic, and I hope those ten walk away with more than that from which they came.

Jason