The saguaros are mighty beings who are linked to life and death for all living creatures in this desert. From the saguaro fruit the Tohono O’Odom brewed the sacred wine that put them in the presence of their beloved ancestors during the summer ceremonies to welcome the rain clouds back again.
In the big arroyo near the rusted steel culvert half buried in sand, I glanced to my left and there was a turquoise rock on the ridge of freshly washed sand and pebbles. I found another smaller turquoise rock near the place of the sound of air rushing out.
One of Godzilla’s heirs, a tiny mesquite lizard about an inch and a half long, was out under the mesquite tree eating tiny golden cockroaches after I moved my rain lily pots to try to discourage the grasshoppers.
If Godzilla lizard were still alive he’d never allow the baby lizard to eat any roaches. Now the territory under the tree and the aloe patch belongs to the two or three baby lizards that recently appeared. They are so tiny they are nearly impossible for a predator at some distance to see.
Godzilla the mesquite lizard reached a critical size — once he got so big and able to chase off rivals and to eat even more cockroaches and grow even larger, he became much too visible. On the ground or the wall or a branch of the mesquite tree, Godzilla became an easy target for roadrunners and racer snakes.
My most vivid memory of the Godzilla lizard is the morning I was watering, and moved a pot of red geraniums on the porch. Out came the most beautiful golden scorpion the size of my thumb. The sunlight made her glitter like solid gold and on her back, perfectly formed and curled in perfect rows, were dozens of golden translucent babies too young to leave their mother.
How beautiful they were in the sunlight, I thought, and an instant later Godzilla lizard raced up, fearless of me, and in two gulps ate the mother scorpion and the babies on her back, just like that. So we eat and then one day some hungry creature eats us.
Last night the local TV news reported that baby rattlesnakes are being born now, and the mothers protecting the babies “seem more aggressive” than usual. Despised and maligned since the Europeans invaded, rattlesnakes were thought to abandon their babies at birth. Two or three years ago researchers found that mother rattlesnakes remain close by to protect their newborn babies for at least ten days.
The eradication of ignorance about rattlesnakes moves slowly in Tucson. People here still believe that “relocating” a rattlesnake found in their yard does no harm to the rattlesnake. The fire department dumps the snakes out in the middle of nowhere in the heat of the day with no shade or shelter from the burning sun, in unfamiliar territory. Most of the relocated snakes will die.
My neighbors dump “relocated” rattlesnakes in the big arroyo below my house because they’ve heard I am a friend of snakes. I keep the area around the old corrals hospitable with a water trough and places for snakes to hide and to find rodents, but it is difficult to say if any of the snakes that were relocated here survived. The resident rattlesnakes stake out their territory and don’t easily accept refugees because the overpopulation of an area will bring starvation for everyone. Then the relocated snakes have to deal with the roadrunners that live here, and with the great horned owls that kill and eat whatever they please. The odds for survival even at my place aren’t good.
Last year Lyon and Snapper together managed to smash and tear to pieces a huge rattlesnake that lived under the dog house. The two mastiffs worked together, and while both were bitten, they had little swelling or pain. Lyon was emboldened by their success and became very aggressive with snakes. I found myself on alert and whenever I heard the mastiffs barking out back, I’d run out to make sure they were not killing a rattlesnake or other reptile.
Last Thursday evening I went for a swim. While I was away, Lyon tried to smash a big rattlesnake that had come into the dog yard. Maybe Snapper had learned her lesson last year because this time she apparently didn’t participate in the attack. Last year she had helped divert the snake’s attention, so Lyon could kill it without danger to himself. But this time he met the snake alone; most likely Lyon had brought down his huge right front paw to smash the big snake’s head, but the snake had struck first. Ordinarily a snakebite into muscle is far more dangerous to a dog than a bite to the dog’s head or neck. Luckily Lyon had developed enough immunity from previous bites to the skin on his head and neck that a bite into the muscle wasn’t life-threatening.
But Lyon’s front paw swelled up as big as a catcher’s mitt. I gave him antihistamines and pain pills prescribed by Dr. Christo the veterinarian. By the following morning the swelling had gone down and he seemed fine. I was curious to see whether the dog had managed to kill the snake that bit him, so I searched the dog yard but found nothing.
By Saturday night Lyon had developed a secondary infection in his right paw and leg, and by Sunday morning, the veterinarian had to come to the house.
The site of the fang holes sloughed off necrotic tissue, and I wondered if Lyon was going to have further damage to his leg. Humans who get snakebitten on their limbs often suffer permanent withering of the muscle and nerve tissue; but they would not have previously built up as much resistance to the snake venom as Lyon has. The vet left antibiotics and antioxidant vitamins, and I let Lyon sleep on the floor in the bedroom because sleeping near their master helps mastiffs to heal. Monday morning the swelling had decreased dramatically, and Lyon wanted to return to the dog yard with the other three mastiffs who know enough to leave snakes alone. Will he stop attacking rattlesnakes? Time will tell.
Lyon is the smartest most beautiful dog I’ve ever lived with. He is black, silver and apricot brindle. He came from a renowned breeder and a great lineage created by Mrs. Greco, after World War Two when the English mastiff and other mastiff breeds were in danger of extinction in Europe due to the war.
So few old English mastiffs remained there was danger of degeneration from inbreeding unless a radical step was taken. The old English mastiff registry in England gave Mrs. Greco a one-time permit to breed a German mastiff to one of her English mastiffs, and the off spring were registered as old English mastiffs. This step gave the Greco dogs enough genetic diversity to be intelligent, gentle, free of hip or other problems and they are very beautiful — especially the brindles.
My English mastiffs learn human routines quickly; they dislike interruptions of these patterns. Once a house-sitter took Lyon with him while he fed the horses. The house-sitter forgot to turn off the faucet at the water trough. As he began to walk back up the hill to the house, Lyon stood next to the water faucet and barked until the house-sitter came back and shut off the water. Lyon knew the routine of feeding and watering the horses because he accompanied the humans, and he knew the last thing he and the humans always did was walk over to the water faucet to turn it off before they went up the hill.
Lyon has a strange routine with the long dry fronds of the potted pony tail palm by the clothesline. He slowly walks under the fronds so that they drag over the entire length of his head, back and tail, lightly touching, tickling him. He slips into a trance of quiet ecstasy, and continues to move back and forth under the dry palm fronds for minutes on end. Once or twice he’s caught me spying on him but he maintains his dignity as he continues to let the dry fronds flutter down his spine.
Through circumstances beyond my control, I ended up with six of these wonderful mastiffs — all of them related to one another. I was the midwife for all of the pups Lyon and Thelma had, including the births of Macho and Osa. Snapper and Rosie are Lyon’s daughters but from Xena, also a Greco dog.