Mevrou Mongoose

    It was time for another dog walk. Yes, the dogs get walked every day at around 6pm. Today was different. It was overcast and rainy, so we were walking earlier - something I should learn not to do as invariably something happens on these earlier walks! 

    I had put on a large t-shirt over my vest because it was still dripping and off we pottered on the bikes. We had just crested the first mountain and were free-wheeling down when the dogs predictably began to chase something small through the bush. As usual, shrieking at them did no bloody good whatsoever, and Coda, the evil little sod that he is, grabbed it and threw it into the air. 

    I managed to chase them off and find the little thing that they had been chasing - a little slender mongoose, obviously still a baby. They had hurt it as it was dragging its leg as it scurried through the bush, frantically trying to escape the dogs. I was gutted that they had again hurt a little animal. 

    I ripped off my t-shirt and together, Pio and I managed to catch it and once it was wrapped up in my shirt it calmed right down and stayed still. I put it in-between my legs on the quad bike and rode home whilst Pio walked the dogs on down the mountain. Cady and Kita followed me and forgot about their walk. 

    Back at home, I found a box to put it in and wrapped it in a towel. I took out some meat to feed it and by this time Pio was home with Bear and Coda. We inspected the little mite, and it showed great spirit, hissing and growling at us. 

    This was a great sign - the more spirit it showed the more likely it was to live. I gave it some mince and it ate very enthusiastically, which was another good sign. It was dragging its leg but looked fit and healthy otherwise. 

    I made the mistake of trying to get some water into the box. The feisty little thing growled and spat at me, but I had no choice other than to actually put my hand into the box to put the little container of water down. It launched at me and bit me on the finger, drawing blood. It was more of a scrape than an actual bite, but there was most definitely dripping blood and a plaster was required. 

    As we were off to dinner with Frankie and David down in the valley, I thought that I could take it along and ask David if he had any ideas for what I should do next. David is a big conservationist and works for the Wildlife Fund here in Nam. He travels a huge amount of the time and does game counts all over the country. Sadly - he was away, but Debbie was there. 

    We successfully identified it as a slender mongoose, which I hadn't known up until that point. I knew it was a mongoose but I hadn't known what kind. Debbie also said that it was very promising that the little thing would survive if it was eating and moving around. 

    But as the evening progressed the quieter and more sleepy the little creature became. He was also covered in lice that crawled over him and the towel. He moved into one position and lay there all evening, not even getting up to growl and spit at us when we poked into the box to check if he was OK. 

    Debbie also advised that I go for a rabies shot, as I had posted the question on Facebook and everyone said yes, I would need to get the shot as mongoose are natural carriers of rabies. Damn - what a mission. 

     The next morning, the little mongoose was sadly no longer with us and had gone off to the Happy Hunting Grounds. I was gutted and so angry with my dogs - why of why did they try to kill absolutely everything that moved? It meant again that I would never be able to have the menagerie that I so badly wanted of goats, piggies, meerkats, cats and dogs, all cohabiting happily. 

    I had to get over my little bout of misery and phone the doctor to ask about the rabies injections. They managed to push me in urgently and I had my first shot that morning, with follow ups required on Day 3, Day 7, Day 14 and so on. 

    Piet was visiting from SA and landed that afternoon after my first shot. He then came with me to the doc the following week on day 3 and day 7. It was when he was with me that the doctor came out to call me in - and instead of announcing my name, he called out, "Mevrou Mongoose..."

    He has since called me that on every occasion, and I have now been for my 6th shot, the 7th being in two weeks time. He really is a funny soul. I now have bruises and two lame arms with these endless shots. And yesterday I seemed to have my first side effects, coming down with a horrendous headache, being unbearably sleepy and feeling generally under the weather. I slept most of the afternoon. 

    So the memory of the gorgeous little mongoose will remain with us for some time yet. We wish that things had been different and that we had been able to save the little thing. We are gutted that he didn't make it and that our dogs are again to blame for the lack of wildlife in our area as they chase everything that moves. We would love to live harmoniously with the wildlife around us, but it would seem that it will never happen. 

    Maybe one day when the dogs are older they will calm this insane chasing of everything and we will be able to co-exist. 

The Python

    It was five-thirty and time to walk the dogs. Sigh … there are days that I really don’t feel like hopping on the bike and tearing around the mountain with four psychotic dogs who chase everything that so much as twitches a whisker.

    But oh well.

    “It’s time to walk the dogs, are you coming?” I asked Pio.

    “Nope, I’m working on NamScape.”

    Great, I would have to go alone – but wait, there was Pieter, my cousin from SA that was visiting.

    “Do you want to come with?” I asked him.

    “Ja sure,” he said, and off we pottered on the bikes up the mountain.

    We crested the first mountain and were sitting on the top waiting for the great galumphing Kita, way behind us. That dog gets fatter and lazier by the day, and no matter what you do, she goes at her own pace. Africa Time takes on a whole new meaning with her.

    We just spotted her coming over the top of the mountain and I was starting to free-wheel down the first stretch, which is quite steep, when Piet said to me:

    “Your dogs have got something – I can hear them.”

    “Shit! Not again.” Seriously, the poor pigs in this place kakked daily. And then of course there was the recent seven grand bill from Coda trying to take on a pig and coming off a sad second best.

    I hit the accelerator on the quad and screamed down the mountain, through the dip, up hill and down dale as fast as I could. I could now hear them barking. And – bloody Kita – after taking her sweet-ass time up the mountain she had now beaten me to the scene of the crime. The fatty could move when she wanted to.

    I skidded through the trees and down into the valley, narrowly missing being impaled on the bloody overgrown thorn trees that I hadn’t had time to cut back.

    I saw what was happening before I could stop the bike but couldn’t actually process it. It couldn’t be my dog, it had to be something else. But no – that was Cady’s striped fur and her long legs sticking out between the coiled rolls of the biggest python I had ever seen. Somehow, without actually knowing what a python really looks like, it had to be one.

    You hear stories of them taking dogs but you always think “Ja whatever. It would have to be seriously big to take a dog.”

    Cady was almost buckled in half and backwards at that. Her tongue was lolling out and her eyes were black and glazed. It had her so tight in its coils I thought she was already dead.

    I won’t forget that first sight of it and the following few seconds that it took me to get around the trees and to stop the bike before I launched off at the snake. What do you do with something that big? How do you stop it? How do I get it off her? My baby looked dead and I started screaming for Piet to hurry up and help me.

    I tried kicking it, but it had its mouth over her side and was biting in, coiled around her so tightly that my kicks did nothing. It was like kicking a rock – pure muscle coiled tightly and killing my dog. I saw its tail flip up as it rolled and grabbed it, pulling it backwards as hard as I could to uncoil it.

    It actually stopped biting Cady and I saw it’s jaw yawn wide with hectic teeth.

    I got a couple of coils off but Cady was lifeless and not moving. I screamed for Piet repeatedly, but this was his first time on a quad in a good few years and he was taking it slowly, not expecting this at all.

    When he got there, I was still screaming at him to help. He left his bike and ran. As he later put it, “I regressed to the stone age and used a good old rock to smack it in the head.”

    It took him throwing numerous rocks at it and me pulling on its tail like a mad thing for it to eventually give up and drop its prey. I don’t even remember how it happened, but I do remember Cady lolling on the ground, her eyes glazed and she was shaking like a leaf.

    I tried to hold her but she had been bent so far over backwards that I was terrified her spine was broken and she couldn’t walk. I was almost crying in panic. Piet continued to launch rocks at the python and chase it with a stick, shouting at the other dogs to get back as they moved closer to see what was going on.

    Cady struggled to her feet and tottered off, sitting under a tree. I have a new respect for this little bush mongrel that we picked up on the side of the road – she’s as tough as nails.

    The python lay in the bush, not moving. Piet and I didn’t know what to do – how could we leave it there? Tomorrow we would be back for another walk and the bastard would probably still be chilling waiting for the next innocent dog to walk by. Piet grabbed a long stick and started trying to chase it out the bush.

    The python decided that it was time to head into the trees and it picked itself up on its tail like it was nothing and curled onto a dead branch. By the time its head was around the branch, its tail was still on the ground and there was a six foot gap in-between. The thing was enormous.

    When it got itself up into the tree it lay there and chilled. Piet and I looked at each other – what to do?

    Phone Pio. I now had to get up the hill as we had no signal in the valley – and go right past the monster chilling in the tree.

    I darted past it and shot up the hill, waving my phone in the air like a lunatic until I got signal. I called him.

    “There’s a ten foot python and it almost ate Cady!” I shrieked down the phone.

    “Come fetch me, I’m going to shoot it.”

    I darted back down the hill, past the python, and asked Piet to watch it whilst I went to fetch Pio. I raced back up the hill on the bike, sliding around corners and spinning up the mountain.

    Pio was already half way up the hill with the shotgun over his shoulder – nothing harms his dogs. We turned the bike around on the narrow trail and I jumped on the back, heading back over the mountain and through the valley.

    He almost fell off the bike when he saw the monster lying on the branch.

    “We can’t shoot it – it’s too beautiful.”

    “I did tell you so,” I muttered. It may have almost killed my dog but I couldn’t shoot something that big.

    “Let’s call the snake guy.” I darted back up the hill until I found signal again and phoned Francois Theart, our local snake expert.

    “SMS me directions, I’m on my way,” he said.

    Piet and I stayed in the bush watching the titan of a snake whilst Pio raced home to meet Francois and his mate.

    Francois and Mike arrived in a stonking great Land Cruiser, taking on the mountain like it was nothing – however they still had about a kilometer to go on foot before getting to us down in the bush. We ferried them in on the quads and even they were awed by the size and condition of this great snake as it stretched it’s 3.5 meter length across two trees.

    Then began the battle to get it out the trees. We were surrounded by massive thorn trees and it was virtually impossible to get within reaching distance of the python.

    Pio raced back up to the Land Cruiser to get Mike’s tongs, which on arrival didn’t even fit around the snakes bulk. He then raced back home again to fetch a saw so that we could cut away the trees to get to it as the more we tried to catch it the more it curled up in the thorn trees, ripping its skin. Thorns were imbedded in its body from the lethal trees, and also in Mike and Francois as they tried to get close to it.

    Piet grabbed the saw and climbed in with great gusto, sawing branches left, right and center. Eventually, Mike had the tail in his hands and Francois the head, with a bleeding thorn tree in the middle.

    Needless to say, there is little left of that tree after Piet gold hold of it.

    The python decided to take a crap on Mike’s hands – apparently it’s a defense mechanism. Mike almost vomited, swearing like a trooper as he couldn’t let the tail go even if he’d wanted to.

    Francois ID’d the python as a boy by the length of the tail. He really is very clued up when it comes to snakes, and explained to us about the heat pits in the nose and how they build up lactic acid then strike.

    His hands were going numb and cramping as he gripped the snakes head in his hands, whilst it tried repeatedly to take a piece out of him.

    He also told us that snakes are deaf.

    It took a very long two hours to get the python out of the tree and into the duvet cover they had brought for it.

    Then began the long trek home, with five people, two quads, a giant snake and Cady, who had stuck to me like glue since the story began. She had refused to go home with the other dogs on one of Pio’s many trips up and down the mountain and had stayed by me, quivering in fear when she went near the spot that she had been grabbed. She has holes where the snake had bitten into her and was bleeding a little but otherwise seemed fine.

    We walked back up to the Land Cruiser in the pitch black, struggling to carry the snake, shotgun, backpack, saw, three torches and with Cady sticking so close she literally tripped me up with every step.

     All’s well that ends well – we got home, tired and filthy and full of holes from the thorn trees but thankful that our dogs were ok and the snake was safely on its way to a reserve nearby where it hopefully will live peacefully and never make it back to my plot!!!