WTLV (Jacksonville, Florida) 07 September 06 Dog Fends Off Rattlesnake to Protect Coyote Friend (Kate Nolan, The Arizona Republic)

Scottsdale, AZ: An affable Australian shepherd mix named Pepper greets visitors to the Southwest Wildlife Rehabilitation and Educational Foundation.

Guests don't know that the pat-worthy canine is the animal sanctuary's first line of defense against rattlesnakes.

Rescued from being euthanized 10 years ago, Pepper has a gift for detecting rattlers. The sanctuary depends on his alertness to protect animals and people on its north Scottsdale desert grounds.

Recently, Pepper earned hero status for standing tough between a rattler and an aged coyote named Kachina.

One night a few weeks ago, Southwest Wildlife director Linda Searles heard the special high-pitched bark Pepper employs for snake alerts. She grabbed her snake bucket and tongs and tracked the barking to the pen of Kachina, a 14-year-old female coyote with a special affinity for Pepper.

What Searles saw was Pepper limping while circling a rattlesnake a few feet from Kachina's enclosure.

"He had a strange look on his face and had stopped barking," Searles said. He'd been bitten.

Typically Pepper would circle at a greater distance, but Searles theorizes he was protecting the coyote. The two animals often sleep side by side with the chain-link fence of Kachina's pen between them.

Searles quickly put the snake in the bucket for release into the desert. She raced Pepper, whose body was already stiffening in pain, to Sonora Veterinary Hospital in Phoenix, where he was immediately treated with a costly antivenin. Shots cost $500 each; he needed two. The shots worked.

"He's a pretty tough little guy," Searles said. "By now, he's his old self again."

That means he's hanging out with the dogs that patrol the sanctuary.

A sanctuary volunteer gave Pepper a neckerchief that spells out "hero," and he mostly lives up to it.

"He doesn't like thunderstorms, so I let him come into the clinic during storms," Searles said.
Dog Fends Off Rattlesnake to Protect Coyote Friend

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