There basically only seem to be two sorts of snakes around here: King snakes and all the many varieties of rattlesnake. This makes snake identification easy. If it doesn’t have rattles on its tail, it’s harmless. Even beneficial, because they’re voracious rat eaters and allegedly are aggressive against rattlesnakes. Most people encourage them, or at least refuse to harm them.
But lord, are they stupid. I’ve run over two that I know of in the past six years, because they insist on sunning themselves on the road. And I just found one on my porch, where no wild predator in its right mind would ever go.
Ghost saw it first. He wanted out, and I opened the door for him. Standing behind the door, I couldn’t see the threshold but Ghost stopped dead and refused to proceed. (Both Ghost and Little Bear have an aversion to snakes, which pleases me as much as you might think. But I’ve always wondered where that came from. It’s not universal in dogs.)
Anyway, I looked to see what was the matter and here was this little snake. Not a baby, but not anywhere near as big as they get. I checked its tail: No rattle. It started to crawl down between the threshold and the first porch board, and then seemed to lose interest halfway through. Ghost wasn’t moving while that snake was there, so I prodded it with my boot until it finally decided to crawl under the stairs. It’s welcome to stay there if it wants but I’ll sure watch my footing for the next day or so.
Stoopid, but good to have around. No guarantees, but they usually mean fewer rattlesnakes in the area. Wish we had more of them here but gopher snakes are more common on our property. Also extremely stoopid – I’ve found them trying to ‘make it’ with both a garden hose and round braided dog leash – and without the rattlesnake deterring properties. Pretty though.