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By Jack Beresford
Senior Reporter
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A cat got a little more than she bargained for after coming across what she must have assumed was a dead snake in her owner's garden.
In a video posted to TikTok under the handle toootyfruityjudy, the cat's mom can be heard approaching her feline companion, who is sitting under a bush playing with something. "Judy, what do you have, baby?" Judy's mom is heard asking, in a playful tone of voice, on the clip. "What does Judy have? Wow, what is that?"
A small black snake is visible under Judy's paws throughout this interrogation. The woman speaking in the footage asks again: "What do you have, baby?" At this point, Judy moves back as if attempting to show her mom the snake she has been playing with.
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A young child is then heard saying: "Eww!" before telling the first person heard on the video: "Mom, it's alive." The woman lets out a scream. Seconds later, viewers get confirmation that the snake is very much alive and kicking with the reptile seen leaping up to bite Judy on the face.
Some shrieking can be heard as the video comes to an end, though Judy remains cool under duress throughout. The dramatic encounter can be watched in full here.
Some viewers criticized Judy's owner for letting her cat engage with a snake in the first place. One said the video showed "why cats need to be indoors" while another claimed this was why "indoor cats are safer and live longer and happier lives."
Others, however, were keen to downplay the danger of what happened.
"It's not a poisonous snake guys I'm sure the cat is fine," one said with another agreeing: "It's a garden snake, just pick it up." Judy has posted several videos since confirming she escaped the incident relatively unscathed.
Snake bites are common among pet cats and dogs and, in some instances, can prove fatal. These deaths are usually a result of "venom-induced consumptive coagulopathy" the clinical term for the condition where an animal loses its ability to clot blood and bleeds to death as a result.
But while venomous snakes pose a serious risk to both cats and dogs, statistically speaking, research has shown cats are more likely to survive.
A 2020 study in the journal Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C: Toxicology & Pharmacology found that 66 percent of cats survived being bitten by an eastern brown snake without antivenom compared with 31 percent of dogs. Eastern brown snakes were found to be responsible for an estimated 76 percent of reported domestic snake bites in Australia each year.
The researchers behind the study put this contrast in survival rates down to several factors. Tests found that snake venomous acted faster on dog plasma than cat or human, suggesting they would likely reach a point where blood clotting fails sooner.
Scientists also attributed the difference to contrasts in dog and cat behavior. Dogs investigate more with their nose and mouth, both of which are highly vascularised. By contrast, cats explore areas with their paws.
Dogs also move around more, which is likely to speed up the spread of venom through the body, given that the standard advice when dealing with a snake bite is to remain as still as possible.
In any eventuality, the best course of action for anyone worried about their cat is to keep them indoors or, in the case of a dog, monitoring their outdoor activity closely.
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