UAE | General

Pet python given up for dead returns to owner

When Monika Cabaj's housemate heard a rustling in the bushes while he was out in the garden one evening, he thought it was a stray cat on the prowl looking for food.

  • By Daniel Bardsley, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 00:00 August 20, 2005
  • Gulf News

When Monika Cabaj's housemate heard a rustling in the bushes while he was out in the garden one evening, he thought it was a stray cat on the prowl looking for food.

Monika Cabaj is reunited with her pet python Cleopatra.
Instead, however, the form lurking in the darkness turned out to be a snake a snake that everyone had given up for dead.

It was Cabaj's pet Cleopatra, which escaped from her Umm Suqeim villa four months ago and was thought to have been killed by a local gardener.

Cleopatra, who is 1.1 metres long, is now enjoying life back in her fish tank and slowly getting used to being around humans again.

The python escaped from the villa when Cabaj, an 18-year-old secretary from Germany, forgot to secure the fish tank. The loss came just two months after Cabaj had bought the snake for Dh500.

Despite a lengthy search, there was no sign of the smooth-skinned reptile in the neighbourhood.

When a gardener who works nearby said he had killed a snake, Cabaj feared the worst and lost hope of ever seeing Cleopatra again.

"When my housemate brought the snake up to me this week, I had to look at her twice to make sure she was mine. I couldn't believe it. I was so surprised.

"We were all looking for her for a long time but I had given her up for dead. I have a lot of other housemates and they were pleased as well because they like her so much," she told Gulf News.

Cabaj said Cleopatra was slightly nervous at first after being found, having gone four months with little contact with people, but since then has calmed down and is more comfortable being around humans.

She is unsure what the animal survived on during her four months of liberty, but said she did discover some hair in the snake's mouth, so possibly she caught and ate a stray animal. As a pet she is fed on one live mouse per month.

Cleopatra is the first snake Cabaj, who has lived in the UAE for three years, has owned as a pet. She also has a dog, a cat, a rabbit and two birds.

She decided to buy the reptile after being impressed by the snake collection of a friend in her native Germany.

"I always thought they were interesting animals because you don't know what they are going to do next. The feeling of snake skin is so nice.

"Cleopatra herself is a nice snake because she's never bitten anybody. She is really calm and everybody can touch her. She's such a nice snake. My friends wear her round their neck. It's wonderful to have her back," she said.

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