SNAKES ALIVE! THERE'S ONE IN THE KITCHEN
IT takes quite a bit to stop a former mounted policeman from the Met dead in his tracks.
But three feet of fast-moving unidentified snake making itself comfortable in the sunny hallway of his house just about did the trick.
Dennis King, 71, of London Road, Hailsham, was looking forward to enjoying his lunch on Thursday last week when his wife, Marjorie called out from the kitchen: 'Drop everything and come urgently.'
Dennis told the Express: 'I first thought it was some sort of a stick, then it moved.
'It seemed quite comfortable but we knew it wasn't a native snake and didn't know what species it was or whether it was poisonous.'
Dennis rang the East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service and a volunteer arrived about 10 minutes later.
The snake shot into the kitchen, hid behind a dog bed then slithered into the hallway doing its best to evade capture.
Eventually, it was popped into a bag and taken to the nearby Horsebridge Veterinary Surgery where vet Rosario Guitarrez identified it as a corn snake.
Pedro, as he's now been named, is currently basking on a bed of shavings under a warming heat lamp. Rosario said: 'He doesn't seem to be particularly bothered about anything and he's not hungry.'
And she would like to hear from anyone who has lost a pet corn snake.
Dennis is used to all creatures great and small – before his retirement he was a London-based mounted policeman and he and his wife now own five Basenji dogs – the barkless Eastern dog first depicted in paintings on the wall of a Pharoah's tomb.
Corn snakes are native to the desert regions of North and South America. They eat small rodents, biting then wrapping their coils around their prey and suffocating it.
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Weather for Lewes
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 0 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -5 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
