By Mara Pattison-Sowden
Stephanie, 4, and 2-year-old Josephine, with mum Sallie Adams, were standing at their back door when a tiger snake appeared. 58960
A FAMILY dog has died a hero while protecting two Warburton children from a tiger snake in their backyard.
With the warm weather still coming and more than five snake sightings already around Warburton, it’s a reminder that people need to be vigilant around bushland areas and know how to respond to a snake bite in an emergency.
The traumatic situation could have been a lot worse if one of the children were bitten, with the vet telling the family that the children would need to get to a hospital within 20 minutes to receive anti-venom.
In a situation that Warburton mother-of-three Sallie Adams described as “scary and real and deadly”, the family had a visit from a tiger snake on 29 December.
Sallie had returned from the shops at about 3.30pm to find her dog Bessie, a border collie/fox terrier cross, barking a high-pitched constant bark.
Running around to the back yard, Sallie found the six-year-old dog standing with its body between the back door, where she knew her two children were, and a 1.5 metre-long tiger snake.
Her son Tom, 22, had heard the barking from inside the house, and ran to the back door at the same time.
Sallie said the snake had its head reared up, facing off against the dog.
“I had never heard her bark like that before… a loud, continual bark,” she said.
“I yelled at Tom to pull the girls away and shut the wooden door and phone the police.”
Sallie said she knew tiger snakes could be aggressive, and “as soon as the dog turned sideways to check the girls, the snake went for it”.
“This full-blown tiger snake just hit the dog, and Bessie was still standing, and then she stumbled.”
Sallie said the dog went into a seizure within minutes.
“I couldn’t get to her, but those seven minutes felt like hours,” she said.
“It was devastating, and the length of the snake was absolutely amazing.”
Sallie managed to jump off the garden wall, throw the dog up, and jump back up herself. But when she turned around the snake was gone.
“It had just disappeared, I had no idea where it was,” she said.
Tom had called a snake catcher on advice from the police, and the children’s grandparents came and took the two young girls off the property for a few days.
By the time Sallie drove the dog to Wandin’s Vet, Bessie had dropped her head and had to be euthanized.
“We have so much gratitude for that dog, she took the bite to save us and I look at my children every night and thank God she saved them,” she said.
Sallie said the family is looking for another dog at Coldstream’s Animal Aid.
“It’s imperative, if I didn’t have that dog we probably wouldn’t have noticed the snake,” she said. “After seeing the size of that snake and how fast it struck I would never attempt to go near it.”
Sallie has cleared her property, which backs onto the Warburton Rail Trail, and warned the neighbours.
She said the last few weeks of letting her children play in the backyard have been difficult.
Wandin snake catcher Mike Alexander said this year had been a bit quieter than normal because the rains mean snakes don’t have to travel far for food.
He said the Yarra Valley mainly has copperhead snakes, but tiger snakes weren’t far behind.
“Copperheads are a safer species to have around and tiger snakes are more defensive,” he said.
“The best thing is to try not to kill it – it leads to snake bite and it’s also highly illegal to kill a snake,” Mr Alexander said.
He said the best advice he gives customers is to back away and call him on 5961 9183.
Black Snake Productions is the only 24-hour snake catcher in the Yarra Valley.
