UPDATE: Sylvester passed away late last night (8/21/09) When I went into the cat house last night (after I got home from clinicals) to clean the cat house, feed, water, scoop, visit with the cats I heard a strange sound that I thought was one of the fan motors going out in the house. I walked out onto the cats patio where the sound was to turn off the fan and instead found a large rattle snake curled up rattling very loudly at me and at Paul who was sitting a few feet away watching the snake. (Can you say this was truly an oh S******T!!!! and freak out moment?) I tried to get Paul to come to me (which in hindsight I am very glad he ignored me) When he wouldn't I got an empty storage tub and shoved it with the broom in between the snake/Paul/Me and was able to grab Paul bringing him into the house area and slam the door.
I ran back into my house to get my daughter and to try to figure out how on earth I was going to get this snake to leave. I thought about spraying it with the power washer or trying to get the tub over it trapping it and calling my neighbor to come dispatch it.
I know some of you out there would say KILL IT! I am sorry, I am not capable of killing a living being (except maybe a bug) that is not being aggressive and at that time I did not know, at that point, that Sylvester had been bitten.
I ended up taking a pole and pushing the tub at the snake hoping to trap it under the tub but it was against the outside pen fencing and instead he went back thru the fence and went outside. We slammed closed the outside building doors for the night and breathed a huge sigh of relief!!
Once the excitement was over I went back into the house area to scoop feed pet etc and that is when I saw Sylvester laying in the corner not moving.... AW SH*T... he screamed when I touched him and I knew we had a major problem now. I screamed for my daughter to get a crate that he had been bitten and we loaded him up, jumped in the car and drove like crazy people to animal urgent care in Fayetteville. (Which is 40 minutes away, I made it in 30 and I am night blind!) I called them enroute and told them we were on our way and for pete sake please do not make us sit in the lobby for 20 minutes before he goes back like they normally do. They were pretty good, they took him in immediately. The vet had to sedate him to handle him because he was in so much pain that he was fighting and biting them (which is so not like Sylvester) he has been bitten in the neck. They started IV's etc trying to save his life but we knew when we heard that it was the neck that the outcome would probably not be good. The vet told us to go ahead and go home she would update us if the situation changed (this vet used to be our vet before she quit and went to work at urgent care so we knew he was in very good hands and it was now 10:30 at night, I still needed to scoop/feed/water everyone, it is a 40 minute drive home and I have school this morning) We made it 15 minutes away before she called and told us he had gone into cardiac arrest and they could not get him back.
We turned around and went back to bring him home to bury. Sylvester was such a sweet sweet soul and I am sure he heard the rattling sound and went to see what it was. He was big furry fellow who loved to sit in your lap. If you sat down you were guaranteed he would be the first one to curl up and go to sleep with you. Everyone who visited his house fell in love with him. He will be greatly missed by the volunteers.
If the snake comes back, I will figure a way to kill him. Until then I am trying to figure out a way to prevent a snake from coming into the outside patio areas.. What a tragic accident!!
