Our dogs were barking in full alert mode, but smart enough to stay away from this. We called it the right angle snake. We just locked up the dogs inside, and the snake vanished shortly afterwards. We had another one about that size that was very sick, and just hardly moving. I was guessing it ate a poisoned mouse or rat and it died in our back yard. I just burred it in our compost pile. I have never needed to resort to poison for the varmints.