Python stalks and eats pet dog

A python looks on after eating inside its enclosure at Bucharest's zoo July 9, 2005. Romania's most known zoo has hundreds of daily visitors who want to increase their awareness of animals from various habitats. A five-meter python stalked an Australian family's dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children, local media said on Wednesday.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - A five-meter python stalked an Australian family's dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children, local media said on Wednesday.

The python devoured the silky terrier-chihuahua on Monday night in Cairns in northern Queensland as two children aged five and seven watched in horror, said the Cairns Post newspaper.

"Actually watching it unfold before your eyes was pretty gut-wrenching," father Daniel Peric told the newspaper. "We'd had the dog about five years, so it was part of the family."

The body of the family's cat had been found a few weeks earlier looking as if something had tried to swallow it and on Sunday a smaller python ate the family's pet guinea pig.

Stuart Douglas, owner of the Australian Venom Zoo at nearby Kuranda, said scrub pythons usually ate wallabies (small kangaroos) but turned on pets in urban areas.

"It actively stalked the dog for a number of days. The family that owned the dog had actually seen it in the dog's bed, which was a sign it was out to get it," Douglas told local media.

Douglas said when he arrived after the attack, all he could see was the dog's back legs and tail sticking from the snake's mouth. "It only took about 30 minutes to eat the dog, but it will be digesting it for two days," he said.