Chet Baker in Mother Earth News!

Chet Baker is famous! Well, he already was with you, dear readers. But thanks to the magic of the Google Image Search, he graces the pages of the current issue of Mother Earth News. Here's the link to the article on dogs and snakes.

A couple of sharp-eyed friends have already recognized him as they page through M.E.N., and asked if that could really be Chet in a national magazine! Well, yes it is!

As you might imagine, I was less than thrilled, upon receiving my complimentary copy, to discover that Chet's illustrating a piece about finding a dog to kill snakes.  I thought the writer, Jan Dohner, handled the reader's question quite well.

"I'm terrified of snakes, and I'd like a dog that would kill them. Could you recommend a breed?"

Dohner led off with a few paragraphs about how the vast majority of snakes are harmless and beneficial, but finally recommended Jack Russell terriers, among other breeds. Sigh.

That question, and the attitude about nature, snakes (and dogs!) that it reveals, gets a huge arrrrgh from me. Good thing I wasn't answering the question, or I'd have recommended

1. psychotherapy  and

2. a mongoose.

They're having a sale down at Mongooses-R-Us. Head on down and pick you one up. They come in yellow, slender, long-nosed, banded...real purty, if you don't mind the goat eyes.

Or there's the Honey Badger. Honey badgers don't care.
It is the most fearless animal in the whole animal kingdom.  And if you have never seen Randall's take on the honey badger, click the link above, and know that this video makes my day.

lifted from bloodsprayer.com, and I'm sure they lifted it from National Geographic Wild...I rarely lift, but this is such an awesome photo of what I'm sure makes an awesome pet for people who fear snakes, I couldn't help myself.

But hey, I'm just the photographer here. All I knew at the time was that they needed a photo of a terrier with a snake, and they liked the one of mine they'd found. I sent Mother Earth News some photos I considered better lit and focused, but they went with their original choice (the top photo) which I guess is the most dramatic. Plus, Chet Baker looks capable of darting in for a kill. Which, as you'll see, he is so...not.

 

 This poor black rat snake was trying to find a place to lay her eggs, and Chet waylaid her on her way across the lawn. He was very curious and wanted to smell her. I think that killing her was very far from his mind, and that would never happen on Indigo Hill anyway. As Floridacracker says, "We don't just observe nature; we participate!"

 

 My personal favorite of the series is the photo below. Chet Baker looks kind and thoughtful, which of course he is. And the sun's in our favor. And there are roses. Horizon's a little skewy.

 

 We let her go on her way, after this priceless opportunity to document a gentle dog's curiosity about another full citizen of our nature sanctuary.

 

 Imagine having a dog just so you can sicc it on snakes. Go kill that copperhead for me! Try not to get bitten, OK? Because it would be a drag if you got killed. Then I would have to go buy another dog to kill my snakes.

So, to answer the original question, "I'm terrified of snakes, and I want a dog that will kill them. Could you recommend a breed?"

"Not a Boston terrier. And certainly not Chet Baker."

His true nature ( a complete lack of intrepidity)  is revealed in Snakeskin Surprise.  Weenieriffic. Just exactly how I want him.

For more adorable Chet/snake encounters, see Chet Baker, Snaker and Chet and the Rat Snake. The first post has him meeting with his first snake ever: a five-foot black rat! Wow. What a nice snake that was, just sliding through the piney woods. And he is such a puppeh in those pictures! Not even two.

Time flies when you have a great dog.

Chet and the Rat Snake

Not long ago, Bill was backing his van out of the garage in the morning when I heard him give a yell. ZICK! ZICK! It was his snake yell. I hoped it wasn’t a big black rat snake hopelessly mashed in the garage door track again. Not going to talk about that time. I also hoped it wasn't another big snarly copperhead disappearing into a tangle of garden tools.

This time, he’d apparently nicked a big female black rat snake with a tire as he backed out. She'd been under the car, and there was no way he could have known she was there. Two eggs popped out. One was crushed, and the other was fine. So, strangely enough, was the female snake. I watched her carefully and could discern no injuries. She moved normally, slithering away, leaving her two leathery white eggs for me to deal with. I cleaned up the busted one and buried the other in a flower pot with dampish soil and a mix of sun and shade. You can always hope…It was such a beautiful snow-white package with its leathery shell. I had to believe there was a snake embryo in there that might hatch. So far, not so good. It's looking stained and dented and feeling kind of hard. Probably too much rain for it to develop properly.

Still, we worried about the female snake, and Bill asked me every day if I’d seen her again after she coiled up behind a garbage can to sulk. Finally, I could say yes. She was making her way across the lawn, fine as frog’s hair, identifiable by her still-gravid belly and beautiful reddish cast.


Chet Baker played Offisa Pupp, and went into full snake alert mode, circling and circling her 4 ½’ length.



Black rat snakes are normally phlegmatic and cool, but this old girl puffed right up. It had been a rough week for her. You couldn’t blame her for feeling put upon. First, they run over me, then they let their impertinent pooch niggle away at me.



Careful, dog. I will bite you.



I know that, Mrs. Snake. I just want a sniff and a closer look.


You do not have to worry about me. I am a gentleman, a well-mannered smallish dog, and only curious.



Well, go be curious with someone else. I will swivel to face you no matter how many times you circle me.



I am so curious. I want to touch you, but I am afraid of you, too.



Go ahead. Come closer. Here are my little white teeth. If you want me to sink them into your muzzlepuffs or that shiny black jellybean nose, just keep it up.



All right, Chet Baker. It’s time to let Mama RatSnake go find a place to lay her eggs.


All right, Mether. I am a terrier, but I am only half a terrier. Since you asked, I will back off.

And she climbed the terrace wall and rested for a long time in the shade of a big purple coneflower, and for all I know she will leave the rest of her precious eggs there in the loose soil. And I was happy to know she was all right, and still had her babies inside her.

Sometime during the day on August 4, 2009, this blog had its one hundred thousandth unique visitor. I'd been keeping a desultory eye on the little counter at the bottom of the blog page as the unique visitor count crawled through the 90,000's, then forgot about it. It must have happened yesterday, because when I looked at 10:30 pm there had been 100,057 unique visitors since January 8, 2006. At 10: 37 pm there had been 100,087 visitors. Dang. That's a lot of people. I thought that was pretty cool, even if many of them are just clicking through and forgetting, to know that more than 100,000 people have been here, and 30 more in just seven minutes. And that some of you have come back again and again. And some of you have gotten Boston terriers, and some have put up bluebird boxes or tried growing orchids or identified a sleeping ball of feathers or stopped and wondered about an unknown animal dropping or just had fun you might not have had, if you hadn't been reading. Thanks, y'all. I've had fun, too. I think of the people I've come to know through this funny little medium and it makes my heart fill up and about beat through my ribs.