Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1885 — Snake-Killing Dogs. [ARTICLE]

Snake-Killing Dogs.

“What sort of a dog do yon call that ?” inquired a reporter of a plenty* of-time-and-nothing-to-do-with-it sort of a person, who with a brace of dogs, had overtaken him on the Kingsbridge road. “I reckon ye’d never guess,” said the Virginian. “He ain’t a pointer nor a setter. He might be taken for a Spitz, but he ain’t; and, I reckon, the only one m the United States. I raised him down yonder in Culpepper County,Virginny; and talk about snakes! why, jest look at him at the very mention of the word.” The little dog certainly had been seized with what the reporter judged from personal experience to be a regular Virginia chill. His ears stood erect, and every lash of his tail nearly threw him out of plumb. . “Just come over yonder on the hill side,” continued the owner, “and see what lie's good for.” The reporter followed him oyer the fence, the little .black dog leading and -making for a slight declivity covered with rocks. “That’s a likely spot for his game,” laughed the owner. In a moment the excited animal was tearing away at the stones, utterly short yelps,* while his companion, a fine fox hound, stood by looking stolidly on. The small dog soon struck hard pan, judging from the noise, and out writhed a goodly-sized garter-snake. The next moment the reptilo was ten feet in the air, and the tosser, bracing himself, grabbed him by the neck as it came down. Then ensued a wrestling that defies description. He shook the snake so that he lashed his own sides unmercifully, a proceeding which seemed only to enrago him the more. Now he was thrown off his feet, lying on his side; now he was rolling in and out among the rocks, yelping, snorting and throwing the gravel about, while his master danced around in delight, aud the fox-hound bayed in evident rapture. The snake, though a good-sized one, stood this treatment and gave out. Then the dog carefully crunched every rib and bone of the snake, down to the tail, laid the defunct reptile at his master’s feet, made his “how d’ye,” and looked again at the heap of stones with an eager air. “Shake ’em out,” said the owner, and for half an hour the black bunch of dog flesh literally waked snakes in that l<r cality, and killed six of the reptiles that had been aroused from their winter sleep. “Oh, he’s a caution to snakes,” said his owner, tossing the dog a lump of sugar; “but these snakes don’t show him up, though. You ought so see him tackle a moccasin. See this collar? Rattles ? Sure’s your born. That rattle represents the last of five rattlesnakes tossed in Culpepper County; and talk of moccasins! he’B at home with a nest of them.” “When did he develop the taste ?” “From birth, I reckon; but he knocked around my place for a year before I fairly sized him up. We considered him of no account, but one day a circus came along with one of these yere snake charmers, and the girl ’lowed her snake hadn’t eaten for six months. The long and short of it was she offered a dollar for the pup, and I made the sale, declining the invite to see the fun, as she called the feeding. Wall,” continued the Virginian with a roar of laughter, in which the little dog joined by showing his teeth, “the next morning I looked out of my window at sunrise, and there a-rushing through my simlin patch was that yere snake charmer. She came up all a-standing under the window, and I’m dog-goned If she didn’t tongue-lash me till 'loved I had enough. She had a deac boa-constrictor about ten feet long over her arm, which she wanted me to come down and pay for. But I didn’t, though she sued me for selling her a wild dog, as she called him, but it didn’t cost me a picayune. You see she chucked the dog in, and, as I heard from a cady butcher, site hadn’t loosed her hold before the dog had the snake for all he was worth. He got his fore leg broke in the wrastle, but when the} tore ’em apart he started for home, and there he is.”— New York Sun.