The one that almost got away.
Posted on Friday, July 06 @ 18:02:30 BST by jenvetadmin
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This is the story of two pythons Holly and George.
It was back in my 1st year as a veterinary nurse. I was starting an early shift and was being handed over to by the night staff. Holly and George had been inpatients for the past week and had been having antibiotic injections. Their enclosure was a wooden box with glass sliding doors. Inside the snakes were fairly inactive due to being so ill. They generally liked to hide in their cardboard tubes.
When the night nurse showed me the cage, I could not see any sign of Holly or George but was reassured by the nurse that they were inside.
After the night Nurse left I thought I would go and have a look at the snakes, as I had not yet seen them. As I looked in the cage I still could not see them I opened one side of the cage and took out all the tubes and paper. To my horror Holly and George were nowhere to be seen. At first I could not understand what had happened but then noticed the other side of the cage where the door was slightly ajar. I looked around and could not see Holly or George anywhere.
At 9am the Head Veterinary nurse arrived and I delivered the bad news. She was furious but I was more concerned about what we were going to tell the owner who was due to phone any minute. After a few minutes he rang, and we reluctantly informed him of the news that we had lost his snakes.
Thankfully he did not seem alarmed, in fact he thought it was quite funny, and told us that Holly and George were often escaping, when they had been well. Apparently when at home Holly and George needed a padlock on their cage because when they slid by the glass doors their skin stuck to the glass and opened the doors. The owner never informed us of this because whilst the snakes were ill they did not move around very much.
Next began the mammoth task of finding Holly and George. There was a large cupboard above the snake’s cage full of newspapers to line the kennels with. We took out all the newspapers and turned every page.
About 4 hours later we found one of the snakes, George. We never found Holly that day. About a week later we had all but given up hope of seeing Holly again, until a little girl came to visit her dog, and she shouted what is that, and pointed at a moving ball of fluff and dust. It was Holly! She must have found a really good hiding place for the week and probably came out to find food.
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