Bossie Girl saves the day.

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500 yds. down the road is my nearest neighbor. Big ole boy we call Killer. For 17 years he shared life with an American Bulldog named Kellie Kel. About 7 months ago KK passed on. Now... picture a 450 lb. 58 yr old southern Alabama country boy in tears over losing his best friend. Not good.
Bout 2 weeks later Killer filled that void with Bossie Girl.  I can't begin to tell you how annoyingly cute a 6 week old American Bulldog is. I can tell you that Bossie Girl and Rambo the rescue dog are inseparable. I can also tell you that Bossie Girl thinks she lives at our house. That may be because Betty Lou made her very welcome  with her very own bed and food dishes on our porch.
Fast forward 6 months...
My relationship with Bossie Girl is nothing short of Love / Hate. When we let Rambo out to pee, she grabs his neck and he has to convince her to let go before he gets a chance to relieve himself. Don't know bout ya'll but, that wouldn't work for me.... at all. Rambo seems to be ok with it.
This afternoon Betty Lou and I were outside doing what we do... shooting pellet guns. When we heard Bossie Girl out front barking her head off like we've never heard. We made our way around front and she had driven Mr. Timber Rattler into a coil in the middle of the gravel road. After gathering myself enough to realize that this could go real bad, I told Betty Lou to grab my MM XS-25 (a scoped gun wouldn't be my first choice but, that's what I was shooting) and some pellets. Bossie had that snake so confused that it didn't even notice me going in to put one in the ear hole from 3 inches out.Al Capone would have been proud. Let's see some pics and finish this adventure later.... BTW... 12 rattles on this monster.

[amb5500c]

Well, theres supper.
Richard

[shadow]

Rattlesnakes, deaths walking stick so to speak. Great double team work gang, Bossie Girl got a doggie treat I hope. Ed

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Richard, you are so right on cue with that.....
Ever since we moved down here from Ohio, I wanted to kill and skin a rattler. Today presented that opportunity. We laid ole Mr. 2tooth out and parted him from his head. Apparently this annoyed him because his body went into attack mode trying to strike. Gentlemen, I saw a side of Betty Lou today that I had no idea existed. She went in with both hands and held Ca down while I unzipped him. That's when we noticed the lump... The lump turned out to be the lower half of a squirrel. In our excitement we didn't even think of taking more pictures. Before I had him completely sliced to the tail Betty Lou had his skin peeled off half way down his body... WHO IS THIS GIRL !!!
She slung the meat and the decomposing squirrel up on the barn roof as an offering to our resident Red-Tailed Hawk. The skin (including rattle) is now stretched and nailed to a ruff-sawn cedar plank. We salted it down and put it in the barn for the night. Tomorrow we'll bring it out into the sun to cure out. I'll get more pics...... promise.

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Bossie got the world's biggest chunk of cheese, her favorite. She also tipped the scales to more on the Love side.

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I don't know if you can see the swelling but, earlier in the day she thought it would be a good idea to eat a live wasp. The wasp didn't think is was a good idea. Kinda looks like she got some Kim Kardashian botox.

[dk1677]

Nice work!

[HunterOne]

Great story.  Felt like I was there.  Very nice.

[Sfttailrdr46]

  Very cool glad that y'all came out of the adventure with a nice snake skin and no damage to all family and friends. Great story too

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Got the skin stretched out and salted down. It measures about 5' from neck to rattle. The guys that grew up around here and telling me that they have always cured them in anti-freeze. I've also read all the processes online. I'll leave it salted for a couple more day to draw the moisture out then decide how to proceed. I have a jug of linseed oil and a tin of mink oil. I might do a couple test pieces with these as well. They work good on leather.

[Jerry C]

WOW great job Bossie Girl, one of the reasons I have always been a dog lover, they never cease to amaze me. Nice snake skin hope it turns out nice for you.

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Update:
After trying several things as my first attempt to preserve the snake skin, I've decided that this one would be better just hung up and displayed rather than try to use it on a stock. It turned out pretty stiff. I'm sure there are things I could do to fix that but, I'm pretty sure he wasn't the Lone Ranger around here and I'll have other chances. So, this bad azz gets a permanent home above our shooting bench.
LOL.... picture #5 proves that I do alot more shooting than organizing.

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BTW.... if you look out between the 2 trees to the left of the picture, all the way out to the edge of the yard, that is roughly 80 yds out. I regularly shoot 16oz plastic soda bottles on stakes with my open sight pumpers. It's quite rewarding.

BETTY LOU ! ..... girl, we got some cleaning up to do !!!

[Sfttailrdr46]

  Great backyard color me green  30 feet from the back of my hose is the six foot fence separating me from my neighbor. They are close enough to hear it when I pass gas in my bedroom

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Great backyard color me green  30 feet from the back of my hose is the six foot fence separating me from my neighbor. They are close enough to hear it when I pass gas in my bedroom

Brother... you definately need a roadtrip.