Yesterday I came home from work and walked through my living room several times before I looked down and noticed that there was a small snake laying belly up on my rug. My first thought was that it must have been in my garage where my cat Koneko found it and brought it in to play with. At the time I was rather put out with her since I'm quite fond of snakes and would prefer to see them alive and out in my garden.

Since it was laying on it's back and was so still I thought for sure that it was dead. So I carefully picked it up and was walking out the front door with it dangling from two fingers to put the snake in the outside trash can when it ever so slowly turned it's head and looked at me!

Now that I knew that it was alive I cradled most of it's body in one hand, letting the somewahat bloody tail tip dangle, and inspected it a bit more closely. It was about a foot and a half long, nearly black with a faint pattern on it's back with a white belly. Maybe a young black racer?

The poor thing was clearly in shock and injured and while I wanted to make sure it recovered I just couldn't keep it inside with three cats, one of which being the one that hurt it in the first place. So I took it out to the back garden to one of the broken pots I set out as toad/snake house and placed the snake under it. If the weather allows I'll check to see if the snake is still there tonight.

Does anyone know what it's chances of survival are? The only injuries that I saw were where Koneko bit the last couple inches of the tail. A few scales were scuffed further up the snakes body but I didn't see any blood or puncture wounds.

Kara