Nothing like living in a small town...

[The Snark]

Start this with facepalm. One of those brainfarts... 'if I had been thinking/awake/rational' sort of things.
Taking a brief split second on the back porch to enjoy the abundance of mosquitos after starting the laundry and I note movement directly across the river. WHAM. Mongoose. Snake has climbed a small mimosa and that bastard rat-thing from hell is going to snag it any second. I dash in the house to grab... what? Where the heck is the camera? No idea. Where's the 9mm? Upstairs and in one of several drawers. Ah. The .44 is right there under the desk. Bat out of H out the back door and empty the clip. Mongoose gets the clue and boogies. Cool.
It takes all of 10 minutes before I get a call from the boss. The neighbor called her to report her other has gone crazy or something. I explain. I can feel her eyes rolling right through the phone as she hangs up. Get on my bike and head to the local restaurant for breakfast. Two vehicles slow down as they pass me, their occupants I've never met before grinning at me and giving me the thumbs up. At the restaurant the waitress-cook gives me darting glances and manages to drop two dishes over a period of 5 minutes. Some construction workers come in. They all grin at me and one mimes blasting away with a pistol. The coconut wireless has been working overtime.
A few minutes later as I ride my bike up the main street almost everyone in town takes time out to stare at me. I get grins from gruff old codgers that have never given me a second glance before. It was less than an hour since me little faux pax. Home now. Sis in law called me from work 300 km away to ask me if I was okay. The boss is due back in six hours. It's not going to be one of those calm and cuddle evenings.
On a positive note, I think it was a Siamensis I rescued. I'm heading off across the river now to search a bit.

 

[cantthinkofone]

thats great XD i wish id been there

 

[lizardminion]

Well, now you get to be popular in real life too.

 

[Crysta]

"It takes all of 10 minutes before I get a call from the boss. The neighbor called her to report her other has gone crazy or somethin"

what does this mean? what is her other?

also...what are you talking about in the post? why is everyone looking at you?

 

[pitbulllady]

"It takes all of 10 minutes before I get a call from the boss. The neighbor called her to report her other has gone crazy or somethin"

what does this mean? what is her other?

also...what are you talking about in the post? why is everyone looking at you?

Let me clarify that, if I may. One's "other" or "significant other" refers to one's spouse, life-mate, long-term partner, whatever term you want to use. In this case, since "the boss" means Snark's wife, HE is "the other", since he's the one telling the tale, in which he rescues a Siamese Cobra from a mongoose by emptying a clip from a .44(guess .44 ammo is cheaper in Thailand than it is here in the US, 'cuzz this is where I'd have opted for the .22 to save on money). Mongooses are regarded as agricultural pests in much of their range, and most sensible folk prefer a Cobra to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, since Cobras do a better job of destroying rats and won't eat up all your chickens, not to mention the rabies issue.

pitbulllady

 

[Louise E. Rothstein]

Nothing like living in a small town

Since a cobra bite can kill in less time than rabies infection can I wouldn't prefer a cobra's company to a mongoose's unless I had prompt access to antivenin.
Although a talking cobra might say,"Don't bother me and I won't bite you" I might startle one by accident if cobras came here.

Rabies is dangerous,too,but you don't die overnight.
So rabies shots the next day are unlikely to be too late...even if an "irascible" mongoose does have rabies to begin with...which most of them don't.

Mongooses may be more likely to develop a taste for chickens.
They may also be more likely to kill for sport.

So people in cobra country do sometimes prefer the cobra.

But I doubt that I do.

 

[The Snark]

Mongoose: A cross between a weasel, a Norwegian super rat and a chain saw. Sometimes referred to as 'garbage hounds'. Extremely hyperactive, belligerent, arrogant and often vicious and highly unpredictable. An omnivore, they will eat just about anything. Their reputation for killing snakes as well as any other small animal that crosses their paths is well deserved. They will kill snakes for entertainment and sometimes leave the bodies intact. Due to their diet of eating dead animals they are prime carriers of diseases, most notably rabies. They are also highly resistant to diseases from their carrion eating habits and as such are natural vectors of disease.

PBL. I seriously doubt a .22 at 50 yards would disturb a mongoose when it is actively attacking a snake. Had one been available I would have had to shoot the animal instead of making noise and kicking up dirt around it.

Introduction of the mongoose throughout the Pacific islands has resulted in the eradication of many species of native animals, especially ground nesting birds. The only effective removal of invasive mongoose populations are highly trained dogs.

In my analogy to a chain saw, that is reasonably accurate. They bite with their incisors making a ragged tearing wound. In most locations, a person bit by a mongoose is automatically treated for leptospirosis.


Mongoose vs snake. All snakes are beneficial predators in their natural environments. Some I personally dislike as O. Hannah and the Kraits due to their diet but live and let live when they are in their own environment. The mongoose on the other hand is essentially the @$$hole of the animal world. It serves little or no purpose or benefit that other animals can not provide, spreads filth and disease, and is up in your face belligerent. The animals up at the snake farm that have bitten more people and caused more problems by far are their two mongoose. They are so obnoxious they have to be kept separate or they fight each other. Their cages have to have double wire just to keep stupid people from sticking their fingers in which almost always results in a nasty bite.
When we have had mongoose in our location the population of all other small animals declines. Scorpions, spiders, birds both wild and domesticated..., anything and everything is on the mongoose menu. Certain species of birds and constrictor snakes are the first to go, then the cobras. Probably the nastiest mess is when a mongoose corners a python. The mongoose eats it alive, taking bites where it can, and often leaving the snake maimed and mangled when it looses interest.
Around here the only small animal that is reasonably mongoose proof are the Russells and saw scale vipers.

 

[pitbulllady]

Mongoose: A cross between a weasel, a Norwegian super rat and a chain saw. Sometimes referred to as 'garbage hounds'. Extremely hyperactive, belligerent, arrogant and often vicious and highly unpredictable. An omnivore, they will eat just about anything. Their reputation for killing snakes as well as any other small animal that crosses their paths is well deserved. They will kill snakes for entertainment and sometimes leave the bodies intact. Due to their diet of eating dead animals they are prime carriers of diseases, most notably rabies. They are also highly resistant to diseases from their carrion eating habits and as such are natural vectors of disease.

PBL. I seriously doubt a .22 at 50 yards would disturb a mongoose when it is actively attacking a snake. Had one been available I would have had to shoot the animal instead of making noise and kicking up dirt around it.

Introduction of the mongoose throughout the Pacific islands has resulted in the eradication of many species of native animals, especially ground nesting birds. The only effective removal of invasive mongoose populations are highly trained dogs.

In my analogy to a chain saw, that is reasonably accurate. They bite with their incisors making a ragged tearing wound. In most locations, a person bit by a mongoose is automatically treated for leptospirosis.


Mongoose vs snake. All snakes are beneficial predators in their natural environments. Some I personally dislike as O. Hannah and the Kraits due to their diet but live and let live when they are in their own environment. The mongoose on the other hand is essentially the @$$hole of the animal world. It serves little or no purpose or benefit that other animals can not provide, spreads filth and disease, and is up in your face belligerent. The animals up at the snake farm that have bitten more people and caused more problems by far are their two mongoose. They are so obnoxious they have to be kept separate or they fight each other. Their cages have to have double wire just to keep stupid people from sticking their fingers in which almost always results in a nasty bite.
When we have had mongoose in our location the population of all other small animals declines. Scorpions, spiders, birds both wild and domesticated..., anything and everything is on the mongoose menu. Certain species of birds and constrictor snakes are the first to go, then the cobras. Probably the nastiest mess is when a mongoose corners a python. The mongoose eats it alive, taking bites where it can, and often leaving the snake maimed and mangled when it looses interest.
Around here the only small animal that is reasonably mongoose proof are the Russells and saw scale vipers.

Sounds like the raccoons we have around here, just smaller and more agile. It's ironic how the animals that so many people find cute and cuddly are, in reality, some of the most aggressive.
I didn't mean shooting a .22 to scare the things, btw. The noise from a .22 is hardly enough to scare anything. I was referring to a more permanent solution.

pitbulllady

 

[The Snark]

There be the rub, Horatio. The line is already stretched to near impossibly thin. What differentiates us frontal lobers with the rest is in not having the critter in your sights when pulling the trigger.