A SURPRISE visit by the second most deadly snake in the world has shaken Vince Brennan’s world.
On Monday he was getting ready to head to the doctor about 2.45pm when he heard his Jack Russell Bella barking loudly.
Bella, no stranger to snakes after being bitten by a brown snake last year, was alerting her master to the threat that lurked on the ground floor level of the Southside home.
“It was hidden behind a box,” Mr Brennan said.
And Bella was leaving nothing to chance “having a go” at the snake and trying to scare it away.
“I thought ‘I’ll have a high blood pressure reading for the doctor’,” Mr Brennan said.
The resident moved the box to get a good look at the snake and it slithered past so fast and gave him such a fright he jumped three steps high and waited there until help arrived.
He called his brother, Brian, and the local police who gave him the number of snake catcher Natalie Costello.
Mr Brennan was able to trap the snake in his downstairs laundry and Ms Costello, an experienced snake catcher, went in, shut the door behind her and expertly coaxed the six foot snake into a bag to be relocated.
Local snake catcher John Keady said an enormous amount of snakes were on the move this spring looking for food.
Saturday morning he caught a taipan at Two Mile State School and chased another brown snake into the bush.
Ironically he got the first call about the taipan while delivering a lecture on snake awareness at the Ettamogah pub to Education Department officials on Wednesday.