Holy snake!

Ok, so my hubby walked out the front door the other night and what does he see on our doorstep? A freakin' snake! Yes, a full blown, huge, hissing snake! He comes running threw the door like he's just seen a ghost (with Bella in the football hold and all). I go to check it out and I start to freak out thinking it could be a rattlesnake. Trying to avoid calling 911, I call Tempe police, who were of NO help! Then I call Tempe Fire, no help there either. They direct us to the Hemoculture hotline, which is supposed to be 24hrs. No answer so we leave a message. We then try to call the Game and Fish hotline, they are only open M-F 8-5, again...no help! We start thinking about our dogs, our cat, Bella playing out back, etc, etc. So we decide to call 911, just in case it is in fact a rattlesnake. Even they couldn't help! The operator said he would not dispatch because none of his officers are trained to catch a snake. Again, he forwards us to this Hemo hotline. So we proceed to leave ANOTHER message (at this time it's midnight). No call back so we go to bed. We get a call at 4am from the oncall snake guy who we describe the snake to. He says it's a gopher snake and not to worry, it's doing more good than harm for us. Ok great!

Next morning Mike goes to let Frankie out to go potty and guess what's on the BACK porch now? The stinkin' snake! Frankie attempts to bite it and it strikes him instead. He's ok since it's not a venomous snake, but I don't think he'll do that again! Keep in mind by this point, Mike thinks he's The Crocodile Hunter! He's grabbing dog crates, empty boxes, brooms, shovels, whatever he can find to try and catch this thing. Finally he slithers off into a hole under our fence. Mike brings home a frozen rat last night and tries to leave it by the hole. This morning it had ants all over it, and no snake in sight. Mission failed!

So the snake lives to see another day. Us on the other hand, won't rest easy until we can catch it and relocate it. The saga continues...