FIGHT BETWEEN A DOG AND A RATTLE SNAKE

Globe, Volume II, Issue 172, 24 December 1874, Page 3

FIGHT BETWEEN A DOG AND A RATTLE SNAKE

A letter from Allendale, Georgia, to the A tala tit a JJerald, relates the following ; On the 22nd of July, within two and a half miles of this place, a terrible encounter took place between a dog and a rattlesnake, which ended in the death of both. About dusk that evening, as Farmer Davis and his plonghboy, and a white woman he had hired to hoe, were wending their way homeward, leading their horses along the pathway, near the margin of the cornfield, the woman, who was barefoted and walking in the path before them, suddenly sprang back, exclaiming that there was the biggest snake she ever saw. Mr Davis advanced with a short pine knot in his hand, with the intention of striking it, when the boy cautioned him, reminding him of the danger he would incur by attempting to kill such a snake with such a frail weapon. He made no further effort to strike it, but the motion with the pine knot no doubt alarmed his snakeship, for he instantly turned and glided into the bushes and briars, and as lie moved his rattles made the well-known sound. This was familiar to the dog, which, on hearing it, at once sprang upon the snake, and, it is supposed, caught it by the tail and tore away its rattles, as their sound was not afterwards heard. Then commenced a death struggle. The snake would strike at the dog, and he would seize it in his mouth and shake it. But before he got a good hold on it struck him several times with its fangs. The dog had previously killed several rattlesnakes, and understood how to fight them upon a fair open field; but in this case he fought at very great disadvantage, being impeded in his movements by the thick jungle of vines, briars, and bushes among which the snake had taken refuge. The fatal wound must have been given by the snake very soon after the contest commenced, as the dog was observed to become weaker and to stagger ; then he seemed to renew his attack on the snake with terrible energy and ferocity—taking it by the body and shaking it most vigorously from side to side, and tearing great pieces 0 f flesh from its body. As soon as he had subdued the reptile he carried it out to the open ground where bis master was and laid it down. Then, reeling like a drunken man, under the workings of the deadly poison, the brave dog placed its feet on its body, and, with the energy of desperation, he literally tore out its vitals. In a moment, and at the very climax of its victory, the faithful dog reeled and fell to the ground, and in a few minutes was dead, notwithstanding every effort was made to save him. The snake was at least five feet long. He bit the dog many times—-twice under the neck in the soft part of the breast, and twice on the shoulder, bosides several times on the mouth. The wound in the breast, being near the jugular vein, did the work, no doubt. It is asserted, on the word of a gentleman of undoubted veracity, that the punctures made by the fangs were one inch and a quarter apart, and that they had the appearance of having been made by an awl. The dog was a mongrel, of medium size, and had been bitten once before by the same kind of snake.