Shiny Love

Saedi is a great watchdog. She’s so great that she barks at everything… wandering cows, bags of coconut husk, the elephant statues we put in the garden… So great, in fact, that sometimes we tune her out.

Yesterday she was barking so long and enthusiastically that she lost her little (big) doggie bark. I came out when I realized how passionate she was about whatever object she chose to defend the house against this time. But as I followed her voice, I realized she had actually found something she really considered a threat.

I couldn’t see it at first. She was furiously growling at…the ground. But as I neared her position, I saw something shimmer in the setting sun. Something big. Something slimy. Something slithering. It was the largest damn rat snake I’ve ever seen. (Even at Croc Bank!)

Today I came home to that same furious bark and thought immediately it might be the Slithering Giant. I quietly grabbed my camera and followed her bark to what she had found.

My heart stopped. It was a snake—It wasn’t the big one, but it was sitting up…like a cobra ready to attack!

I screamed for her to get back. She listened. But it wasn’t a cobra… It wasn’t just one snake… It was: snake sex.


I filmed it anyways.



There’s actually something beautiful, captivating, and—dare I say it?—romantic about snakes mating. They’re so intertwined with each other and so focused on each other that they don’t even seem to notice the barking dog(s) and gawking human that may stand a foot or so from their love-making site. I was so touched I had to give them privacy…even if Saedi kept barking away.