Cat helps keep owner safe from poisonous snakes

HICKORY

To most, Teddy is an average gray and white domestic shorthair with a white bib and booties.

But to Gary Barnette, he's a hero. For the third time this year already, 4-year-old Teddy has alerted Barnette to danger lurking amongst his rural landscaping.

Barnette, who is still recovering from back surgery that has him using a cane to walk, noticed Teddy intently stalking something near an outbuilding on his rural property off Johnstown Road last month.

Using a stick, Barnette carefully lifted a bucket a few inches to see a water moccasin, coiled and ready to strike.

Barnette hobbled back to his house to get a shotgun and dispatched the snake. And then gave Teddy lots of hugs and praise.

"That's the third water moccasin he's found in the yard so far this year," Barnette said. "And he found one last year."

Barnette, 69, a former narcotics detective with the Chesapeake police department and ABC undercover agent, believes Teddy's vigilance in letting him know where snakes are has prevented him from being bitten more than once.

Had Barnette walked near the snake or inadvertently uncovered its hiding place, his reflexes would not have been fast enough for him to jump out of the way.

Teddy doesn't discriminate when it comes to flushing out snakes. He'll corner black snakes, brown snakes and garter snakes with the same verve as he does water moccasins. But Barnette lets the harmless snakes go free.

"They come out searching for frogs," Barnette said of the dangerously poisonous cottonmouths.

Barnette advocates getting cats for patrol duty. He recalled an article he read in a Pamlico, N.C., newspaper about a man who walked up on a rattlesnake and was bitten. He then had a bad reaction to the anti-venom, which caused his liver and kidneys to shut down.

Barnette wrote a letter to the North Carolina paper, explaining how his cats let him know where snakes are on his property and keep them relatively snake-free.

A couple weeks later, Barnette said he called the Pamlico animal shelter and was delighted to hear every cat had been adopted shortly after his letter was published.

Teddy himself was adopted from Chesapeake Animal Control two years ago.

"People who live in the country need to have cats, because cats will let you know what's going on in your yard," he said, balancing a squirming Teddy with one hand and the dead snake with the other.

"I just love cats," Barnette added, as Teddy affectionately rubbed his head on the former Marine's chin. "I hope people will take this opportunity to go to an animal shelter and adopt one or two."

Devon Hubbard Sorlie, 222-5202 or

Devon.Sorlie@pilotonline.com