Ferocious

Bahadur translates to Brave. That’s what we call our pet dog. He has been with us for over 4 years. He was just a little pup, over 3 weeks old when we rescued him.

Today, he rescued us after ferociously fighting with a cobra. For an hour he kept the snake from entering the house or leaving the car porch. Most cobras are shy and would usually run and hide when people are around but not this slithering reptile.

It just stood there, holding its ground with its expanded hood, hissing each time Bahadur got close.

It was the longest hour waiting for the animal control to arrive. We didn’t want the snake dead nor did we want it to slither away to another compound. We were lucky we had Bahadur who alerted us of its presence but not everyone in my neighbourhood have pet dogs.

Things were quite calm for the first hour because the cobra seemed quite contended with its hiding place, under my car. We managed to convince Bahadur to enter the house for some water.

As Bahadur let down his guard, the snake too relaxed and closed its extended hood. It lay flat on the ground for 10 minutes. But soon it was moving again, slithering towards to my neighbour’s compound. As soon as it moved, Bahadur jumped out of my embrace and pounced on it. That’s when things got really dramatic.

It was no longer like a territorial fight but a battle of life and death. By this time, I could no longer wait for the animal control to come and rescue it, I was worried for Bahadur’s safety. I begged him to let the snake go, because it was ready to leave but nothing I said was getting through to him.

The hissing, growling and barking kept getting louder. Soon my wailing toddler and my husband stepping out, just added more fear to my nerves. I was scared for both for my husband and Bahadur. I didn’t know why my husband went out. He was either trying to get Bahadur to come in or he was nuts trying to help Bahadur get that snake while Bahadur was trying to harm the snake and the snake (petrified I’m sure) was ready to strike anything to save its skin.

This went on for just a couple of minutes but it seemed like lifetime to me. I stepped out to do something, I was compelled to do something but I didn’t know what. “If you want to do something, you could take a video of Bahadur fighting it” my husband said to me calmly. I wasn’t calm the least bit but I did as he said.

Only after Bahadur managed to grab the cobra by its tail and flung it over my gate did I calm down. It was a sight to behold. He was like a lion, on his hind legs when he flung the cobra over. He was as quick as lightening and the cobra didn’t get a chance to sting him with its venomous bite.

“Did you see that?! Thank god you recorded it” he cheered as he grabbed his handphone from me. Little did we know then, in that moment of frantic I was too panicky and had forgotten to swipe to record mode. So it was lots of blurry pictures of Bahadur and my garden.

Now we had an injured cobra hiding in my flower pot, right outside my house. All I wanted to do was run into my house and lock all doors and windows. Instead I was put in charge of guarding it because the animal control wanted to capture it. I adhered because I knew they were just minutes way from my house and also I was worried it might return to seek vengeance on Bahadur. (do animals even do that?)

Amazingly, the cobra didn’t move much, it just kept its head under a large leaf but the rest of its black shining body sticked out like a sore thumb against my green plant. It was such a relief to see the animal control over and taking control of the situation. They were rather disappointed to see that it was just a baby cobra. I guess I might have exaggerated some details in my frantic call to them. You can’t blame me, I’m a mother and I would do anything it takes to care for my babies.

Now Bahadur has become my kids personal guard. They take him everywhere to sniff out any lurking dangers. He doesn’t looked amused at all but I know, he loves the girls and doesn’t mind it. At least he gets the bonus of watching the tele with them.

My brave Bahadur. I’m so glad we picked the right name for you. Who would have thought this little fuzzy fur ball would have one day turn into a ferocious lion.

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