‘Man’s Best Friend’ Loses Life in Fight with King Cobra

‘Man’s Best Friend’ Loses Life in Fight with King Cobra

Mangaluru: They say that Dog is “Man’s Best Friend”- which always tries to protect its Master and family from intruders, robbers and other miscreants. But here this story of a dog is completely different-where it had a fight with a King Cobra which had entered its master’s house- and sadly in the fight and due to injuries succumbed. This story reminds me of the incident that took place few months ago, when my two Daschund breed of dogs had a fight with a snake in our compound- and the scene was kind of scary, the way both the reptile and my canines fought with each. But luckily I was able to pull the dogs away from the snake, without any injuries to the dogs nor the snake. And since the snake was not a poisonous, my dogs were safe!

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But sadly, in this incident the country dog which fought and struggled with the King Cobra ended in death. Sources reveal that a King Cobra that literally got in to a ‘dog fight’ and sustained severe injuries is recuperating at the biological park of Dr Shivarama Karantha Pilikula Nisargadhama-Mangaluru. The ‘dog fight’ incident took place at the house of Venkappa Gowda, an agriculturist at Ubaradka village in Sullia taluk, when the king cobra entered the house chasing his pet cat. Even as the cat escaped from the reptile by climbing to the attic, the dog noticing the reptile started chasing it and got into fight.

When they saw the Cobra moving into the house, Venkappa Gowda’s family locked all the doors and bolted the house from the outside. and immediately called Shivananda, an expert snake catcher. But in the meantime, inside the house both the dog and the king cobra had a fight, in which the Cobra was severely injured, but the the dog succumbed to injuries. went full tilt at each other and needless to state, the dog ended up the loser, but not before inflicting some serious damage to the agitated reptile. In the meantime snake catcher Shivananda who had captured and tamed the injured king cobra, had to wait till experts from the Park reached Venkappa’s house and later transported it to Pilikula for treatment at the centre there.

Speaking to Team Mangalorean on the progress of the King Cobra, H Jayaprakash Bhandary, Director, Pilikula Biological Park, “At present the king cobra is recovering from the injuries sustained in the fight. But it will be couple more days before we could release the reptile back in the wild forest, where there is water and natural surroundings.Regarding this King Cobra, it is capable of delivering a fatal bite and the victim, the dog in the case, might have received large quantity of venom with a dose of 200 to 500 mg or even up to 7 ml. Sadly the dog succumbed to the neurotoxin within 30 minutes, after it was attacked and injured”

It is learnt that the king cobra was an adult that measured nearly 12 feet in length. It was in a highly excited state and on the offensive due to it’s just concluded encounter and resultant injuries. “It is not common for dogs to attacks snakes. This dog probably is used of going after other animals in general and monkeys in particular in this area, and reptiles like king cobra is commonly sighted in Ubaradka that abuts the Poomale Reserve Forest, which is thick and dense” had said Shivananda.