Python devours family's chihuahua
Wednesday Feb 27 10:00 AEDT
By ninemsn staff
A distraught north Queensland family threw chairs at a 5m python in a fruitless attempt to stop it devouring their pet chihuahua.
The snake stalked the silky terrier-cross late Monday night, eventually settling down to consume the dog on the veranda of Daniel Peric's Kuranda home as his two horrified children watched,
The Cairns Post reported.
When snake experts arrived to remove the non-venomous reptile, all that could be seen of the dog was its tail and back legs.
"We'd had the dog about five years, so it was part of the family," Mr Peric said to the newspaper.
The family lost its pet guinea pig and cat to hungry snakes in the last month.
"These pythons used to feed on wallabies but now they feed on cats and dogs in suburbia," Australian Venom Zoo owner Stuart Douglas told
The Post.
"This python actively stalked their dog."
"They'd thrown chairs at it to try to stop it, but it had already eaten the animal," he said.
Mr Peric is now frightened snakes will hurt his children, aged five and seven.
"We have ducted air-conditioning. Call it paranoia, but my big fear is that a snake will get in there," he said.
