Please Don't Kill Me

Friend says there are snakes in her yard and she has her brother out killing them because they're worried about snakes biting their dogs. I asked, do you have woodpiles or stone bluffs nearby? She said yes. I said, snakes are just waking up after the winter's nap and simply passing through your yard. Please don't kill them. Now awake and slithering through is one of my blacksnakes -- the house snake here, just as a restaurant has a house wine. Harmless. It stood still and posed, head raised, while I took its ceremonial first-day-awake photo. Go eat those mice, bro' you're looking a little thin.

People hate snakes because they slither and they bite. But that's what snakes do. They have no alternative! Leave them alone, don't poke them or grab them, don't let your dogs play with 'em. "Don't let my dogs? But my dogs aren't under my control all the time." Excuse me, but they should be, in country as well as city. I'll bash your free-running dog that's running at me before I'll bash a snake.