A dog owner has told of her frantic battle to save her pet from a 15-foot python that had coiled around it – using a pocket knife.
Courtney Link saved her dog, Dexter, from the enormous snake by stabbing it in the head, after punches she’d unleashed on the serpent failed to make it loosen its grip.
Mrs Link was walking Dexter with her husband in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung West Country Park last weekend when the terrifying encounter took place.
Dexter ran out of sight at one point – and a few moments later the pair heard ‘frantic barking and a strange gurgling noise’.
To their horror, they found a huge Burmese python coiled around Dexter’s head, neck and body.
Mrs Link, a British expatriate, desperately punched the snake repeatedly, but to no avail. Then her husband handed her his pocket knife.
Mrs Link, who runs a care service for animals called The Pet Nanny, said: ‘Dexter was starting to weaken and he eventually stopped struggling altogether. At that point we really thought we had lost him. So when I suddenly saw the snake's head, I just started stabbing furiously.’
This had the desired effect and the reptile slithered away.
Dexter, who weighs around three and a half stone, was left in a state of shock and suffered deep bite wounds, but has now made a full recovery and is back to his energetic self, according to Mrs Link.
Luckily for Dexter, his owner had recently completed an animal first aid course and put her skills to use in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
She told MailOnline: 'Dexter is incredibly special to us as I found him as a stray puppy very sick, emaciated and close to death.
'He is also my first dog, a life long dream to have a canine companion. He has transformed my life and motivated me to become a Canine CPR Emergency Responder in case I needed to save his life one day. I completed this course in the UK in March 2014. So amazingly well timed.'
The python is a protected species in Hong Kong and Mrs Link said she only stabbed the one that attacked Dexter as a last resort.
Adult Burmese pythons usually grow to around 15 feet in length, with the biggest ever recorded, in Florida, being 18 feet.
They favour rats and mice, but will take pigs and goats – and even alligators.
Courtney Link saved her dog, Dexter, from the enormous snake by stabbing it in the head, after punches she’d unleashed on the serpent failed to make it loosen its grip.
Mrs Link was walking Dexter with her husband in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung West Country Park last weekend when the terrifying encounter took place.
Dexter ran out of sight at one point – and a few moments later the pair heard ‘frantic barking and a strange gurgling noise’.
To their horror, they found a huge Burmese python coiled around Dexter’s head, neck and body.
Mrs Link, a British expatriate, desperately punched the snake repeatedly, but to no avail. Then her husband handed her his pocket knife.
Mrs Link, who runs a care service for animals called The Pet Nanny, said: ‘Dexter was starting to weaken and he eventually stopped struggling altogether. At that point we really thought we had lost him. So when I suddenly saw the snake's head, I just started stabbing furiously.’
This had the desired effect and the reptile slithered away.
Dexter, who weighs around three and a half stone, was left in a state of shock and suffered deep bite wounds, but has now made a full recovery and is back to his energetic self, according to Mrs Link.
Luckily for Dexter, his owner had recently completed an animal first aid course and put her skills to use in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
She told MailOnline: 'Dexter is incredibly special to us as I found him as a stray puppy very sick, emaciated and close to death.
'He is also my first dog, a life long dream to have a canine companion. He has transformed my life and motivated me to become a Canine CPR Emergency Responder in case I needed to save his life one day. I completed this course in the UK in March 2014. So amazingly well timed.'
The python is a protected species in Hong Kong and Mrs Link said she only stabbed the one that attacked Dexter as a last resort.
Adult Burmese pythons usually grow to around 15 feet in length, with the biggest ever recorded, in Florida, being 18 feet.
They favour rats and mice, but will take pigs and goats – and even alligators.
Source : SCMP , DailyMail
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