Dogs get bitten by snakes because they are predators and attracted to crawling animals like snakes, mongooses and monitor lizards. On sighting a serpent, guileless and untrained pet dogs launch an attack with gusto but the battle is one loaded in favour of snakes.Jimmy lies semi-conscious while the rescued spectacled cobra is in a plastic jar opposite her. (SCREENGRAB: REPUBLIC KARNAL NEWS)During the night of June 28, 2026, a female labrador, Jimmy, of Dr Sumit Thakur took on a spectacled cobra that wandered into his farmhouse in Nissing (Karnal) to predate on umpteen frogs. Within 12 seconds, captured dramatically on CCTV, the cobra bit Jimmy on the right side of the face and the right hind leg. Jimmy dropped dead within eight minutes, suspected to have suffered a heart attack.There were little children in the farmhouse and Jimmy’s death averted a hazardous accident with the cobra. The CCTV footage turned irresistibly tempting for TV channels. A bereaved Dr Thakur wept inconsolably like a child during interviews, his grief at losing the nine-year-old Jimmy laced with gratitude for the “dog martyr”. The cobra suffered a wound but was rescued and removed.Snakes will tend to beat a retreat to avoid contact with dogs but when cornered they can turn the tables. The footage shows that Jimmy, a heavy-set and well-fed labrador, was no match for the cobra’s flexible manoeuvre and lightning strikes. Jimmy tried to paw and bite it but was too lumbersome and lacked a mongoose’s agility to evade the cobra’s retaliatory bites.“Relative agility determines outcomes in snake-dog encounters. In Jimmy’s case, I suspect that the cobra’s venom, which can contain cardiotoxins apart from standard neurotoxins, led to a possible heart attack,” Kedar Bhide, an eminent snake researcher who has worked on snakebite mitigation at dispensaries under the governments of Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, told this writer.Jimmy’s death recalls encounters in Chandigarh, an abode of pet lovers. A Russell’s viper was cornered by three English labradors of the Sandhawalias of Sector 5 but managed to escape after delivering four bites to the face and neck of one of them, Merlin, during the night of September 26, 2015.Another viper killed a pet dog, Jimmy, of the Nagis at their residence in Railway Colony, behind Kalagram, on Dussehra day of 2016. Jimmy was no stranger to encounters, having killed three snakes before his own burial.Bottomline is, keep dogs away from snakes. Leash them, maintain a vigilant watch in snake-prone areas and restrain pets on spotting a serpent. On my soliciting his perspective, legendary herpetologist and Padma Shri awardee Rom Whitaker suggested the following: “Dog owners and even veterinarians (who should be the ones to solve the problem) don’t train dogs when they are pups to strictly avoid and be scared of snakes. It’s very easy to do so for most dogs; we do it by letting our pups get bitten on the snout by a small (non-venomous) Checkered keelback snake.It sounds cruel but maybe it can save the dog’s life when it grows up. This will require the help of a snake rescuer of whom there are plenty around. Or, put a freshly-shed skin of a snake (which has a distinctive smell) in a grassy place and when the puppy approaches it, make a huge racket using a ‘dekshi’ and a wooden spoon and shout loudly, i.e., scare the hell out of the puppy. You can test it after a few days by putting the shed skin out again and see what the puppy does; if need be, the noise can be repeated. I wish these techniques were widely publicised; it would save countless pet lives.”vjswild2@gmail.com