A Melbourne woman mourning the devastating loss of the family’s pet doberman has slammed the local council for not responding to calls for help after one of Australia’s deadliest snakes was spotted on a neighbour’s property.
“I believe the council is to blame,” Lana Bagnato told Yahoo News Australia. “If the calls were responded to, my dog Bane would still be alive.”
Ms Bagnato’s husband had been standing just one metre from their “beloved” Bane in the back garden of their Greenvale home at around 4.30pm on January 16 when the tiger snake struck.
After vomiting and defecating uncontrollably, the dog collapsed, before the man rushed Bane to a local vet. Tragically he couldn’t be saved.
Dog’s death came six hours after snake first spotted
Grieving the death of her dog, Ms Bagnato described Bane as “literally a son”. She said she phoned Hume City Council to raise the alarm.
“I was told that they could not send anyone out that evening nor most likely the next day as they were already booked out,” she said. “I asked if they could please keep my records in case someone cancelled as it had already killed my dog, to which she said no.”
Desperate the tiger snake would strike again, Ms Bagnato immediately called a local snake catcher who arrived half an hour later and caught the tiger snake within two minutes. In the meantime, she door knocked her surrounding neighbours to warn them of the danger and made a devastating discovery.
“I found out that several houses had already called the council with the same response that I had received, starting from 11am,” the 33-year-old mum said.
“As you can imagine we are extremely disappointed in the council’s services and absolutely heartbroken at the loss of our dog which could have been avoided had the council sent a snake catcher in a timely manner.”
Ms Bagnato, who has a four-year-old son, said the estate was home to mostly young families, and she would “hate to imagine what the outcome would have been if the reported snake had attacked a young child or adult”.
Yahoo News Australia has reached out to Hume City Council but at the time of publication had not heard back.
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