Fer de Lance and walking the dog in Martinique

Ssnakey

Hi,

I appreciate this sounds like a very random question, since this is boards.ie and there are no snakes on this island but I'm wondering if anybody might by chance have experience living on Martinique, a beautiful and sunny island full of Fer de Lance snakes or have experience keeping a dog in a snakey country. Experience of Martinique would be ideal as they might not be as common as say in Australia.

These are highly venomous and will kill a human if not treated with anti-venom. It's an invasive snake, purported to have been introduced to scare slaves into staying on plantations. However, my question is this, dogs like to run around and go into long grass to go to the toilet and so on, so keeping a dog on such an island, how do people manage without their dear pet being bitten? Do people walk their dogs on the lead everywhere? I'm asking this as there is a possibility I might live on the island one day with my dog.

spurious

You could contact the woman behind this site and ask her:
http://www.kreolischerhund.de/RSPMartinique.en.php

Diane Selwyn

I've never been to Martinique but lived in Australia for years and our dogs never had a problem with snakes or spiders. Snakes were certainly around at certain times of the year but they generally sense you coming and disappear before you get near - you see them now and then of course but they usually move incredibly quickly. I can't actually recall hearing first hand of a dog, cat, horse or cow being bitten although they do go for chickens (and eggs) so I believe some farmers still have 'snake dogs'. Some breeds are more likely to try to chase them - the same way some dogs like to chase rats or rabbits so if they did corner one they might end up getting bitten otherwise I think they would be extremely unlucky.