Christiane Cocum lives in Eastgrove with husband Garry and two children. Recently, ragdoll cat Boccy was making a lot of noise at 2am. It seems they had an unwanted visitor. 

Boccy the eight-year-old cat had bailed up a juvenile tiger snake outside the parents’ bedroom door. 

The snake was nearly one metre long and extremely aggressive, attacking the cat. Christiane, who owns and operates Kiki’s in the Grove cafe, pulled Boccy away from the snake, which then slithered into the children’s room. 

Luckily, the children had decided to sleep in the lounge room that night, because of the heat. “I looked in the bedroom and thought, thank God the children aren’t in there,” Christiane said.

Garry fetched a hook while Christiane picked up a bag, finding the snake coiled up and ready to strike. Then Garry removed the snake into the hallway and then onto the front verandah, away from the family and their cats. 

The family had never seen a snake in their yard. The snake had slithered under the front door, which Boccy sleeps behind every night.

“He had been actively attacking the snake and it was trying to attack him,” she said. “It’s a miracle Boccy didn’t get bitten.”

Christiane was extremely cautious, having previously lost two pets to snake bites.

“It’s just a warning. We know there are heaps of snakes on Rocky Hill,” she said.  

“I was really worried he’d been bitten because he was very quiet and his breathing was laboured after we got the snake out. 

“We checked him for bites and couldn’t find any blood, so I stayed up with him all night to make sure he was okay.”

“If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have known it was there.” 

A timely reminder to check your animals while snakes are around.