Lucky to be alive is this cute Children's Python attacked by a dog while trying to get at tasty guinea pigs on Magnetic Island . Rescued, fed on frozen rats from a pet shop and given a warm pad to get it through the current cold snap in North Queensland, the snake is shown having some outside exercise up a tree before being returned inside to safety...not far from those protected guinea pigs and a pet rat.
The sex of the snake is not yet known. However, if it is male, it will be called Scaly; in the event that it is female, its nom-de-slither will be Scarlet .
As mentioned , the serpent was intercepted by Tido, a Pitbull, who believes that if anybody is going to eat those squeaky guinea pigs, Lala and Hans , it is him , as he is often seen eyeing them off closely in their enclosure . The grey pet rat , aptly called Ash, also receives hungry eyed attention from Tido .
A visitor to Magnetic Island from Darwin told how she once had pet guinea pigs and arrived home to find a slumbering python inside their cage with a lump in its body. The non venomous python was named in honour of John George Children , curator of the zoological collection at the British Museum .