Bragging about snakes — now that’s new to me! I know Australia has some wicked ones.

When I lived in the rural area west of our city, we would see rattlers on the roads and in ploughed fields, but the only poisonous snake seen on our property was a coral that killed our Labrador. Corals are not vipers so they don’t strike but, unfortunately, our dog was curious enough and innocent enough to stick his head right down to the snake who latched on to his fleshy lip and chewed in his venom.

At first, we didn’t think it was a coral because of its size — much bigger than any coral my husband or I had ever seen. It was large and it packed a lot of venom — enough to kill our 85-lb dog. We donated the snake’s body to our University’s Florida Museum and they said it was one of the top five largest corals ever killed in Florida. Not a record I wanted to claim, especially since it led to the death of our lovely dog.