Oz woman tackles 3m carpet python to save her pet dog

Melbourne, May 26 (ANI): A Bushland Beach woman has revealed that she did not think twice about tackling a 3m carpet python after it coiled itself around her pet dog.

Goicoechea Drive resident Brenda van Bovene said when she heard the desperate cries of her 11-year-old Australian Silky Terrier, Tammy, on May 24, she just dived into action.

“I was in the study and Tammy was making this terrible noise,” the North Queensland Newspaper quoted her as saying.

“I’ve heard it once before … it’s a horrible sound, a really bad stress signal, so I ran outside to investigate,” she revealed.

What she found was the carpet python coiled around the dog.

“I’m only 5ft 1inch (155cm), and it looked twice as big as me - it was a huge snake,” she said.

But despite being outsized, she grabbed the snake’s tail and broke its hold on the dog.

“It was all a bit of a blur, I just did the first thing that came to mind,” she explained.

“I managed to grab the tail and start to pull in the opposite direction. The snake coiled tighter but eventually let go to (flee) beneath the barbecue,” she said.

As the snake sheltered on the patio, van Bovene put Tammy in the house.

Meanwhile, her cries for help as she struggled with the serpent alerted neighbour Cameron Rowlands, who was later joined by his father, Steve, and the pair caught the python.

van Bovene said the would-be predator was caught, placed in a pillowcase and released in bushland at the Bohle.

“We didn’t injure it at all, but thought it would be best to relocate it to a non-residential area,” she said.

Tammy has been given a relatively clean bill of health by a vet but van Bovene has placed her under “house arrest”.

She warned an attack would occur again unless an effort was made to maintain grassed areas in the suburb.

“This was the 13th snake we’ve had in the past six to eight weeks,” she said.

“All the (environment) conditions are the same as they were last year when we saw none, except for the state of the grass.

“Something needs to be done by residents, or if they won’t, council, and they can send them the bill.

“A snake (as big as that which attacked Tammy) could easily do the same to an infant,” she added. (ANI)