NAME:	Khan
SPECIES:	Doberman pinscher
DATE:	October 2007
LOCATION:	Cairns, Australia
SITUATION:	Toddler threatened by a venomous snake
WHO WAS SAVED:	Seventeen-month-old Charlotte Svilicic
LEGACY:	Australian “wonder dog” famous for risking his life for newly adopted family

When Khan, a Doberman pinscher, was first rescued by a kennel in Cairns, Australia, he was so severely malnourished and abused—with several broken ribs from the beatings he’d received—that he was almost put down. However, the kennel’s owner had originally bred Khan, and she couldn’t bring herself to end his life.

Then, in October 2007, the Svilicic family adopted Khan, and only four days later, the dog repaid their kindness forever.

SNAKE IN THE GRASS
The family’s seventeen-month-old daughter, Charlotte, was playing in the backyard garden, and Charlotte’s mother, Catherine, was watching from the kitchen window. Catherine grew concerned as she saw their newly adopted pet begin to act aggressively toward her daughter. Khan was insistently nudging and pushing at Charlotte, clearly trying to move the toddler, but she wouldn’t budge.

Suddenly, Khan bit the back of Charlotte’s diaper and flung her more than three feet through the air, so that she landed behind him.

“Charlotte looked pretty shocked,” Catherine said, “and then Khan screamed.”

Immediately, Catherine realized a snake was attacking Khan, and that Khan’s intervention had saved her daughter from being bitten instead.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it,” Catherine said.

Khan was bitten in the right front paw by a king brown snake, the most widespread and largest venomous snake in Australia. Brown snakes are notorious for their savage attacks, but Khan was lucky: He pulled away and ran inside, where he collapsed. After gathering her daughter, Catherine rushed Khan to the hospital, where he was given an antivenin and quickly recovered.

Brown snakes account for about half of Australia’s snake-related deaths, and apparently local hospitals keep plenty of antivenin on hand. (So, no worries, mate!)

Afterward, the Australian media, including the morning talk shows, inundated the Svilicic household with calls, wanting to hear the story firsthand.

It was overwhelming, but Catherine understood why.

“He saved [Charlotte’s] life by risking his own,” she said. Plus, not every altruistic hero is a formerly abused dog. “From now on, he’s Khan the Wonder Dog. Khan’s a star.”

The kicker? The kennel owner, Khan’s breeder, said that Khan’s grandfather once did the same thing.

ALL INDIANA JONES NEEDS IS A DOG
Indiana Jones is one tough archeologist. Nazis? Poison darts? Burning zeppelins? No problem. But snakes? They are the one thing this notorious ophidiophobic can’t stand.

If only Indy would bring along a dog. Stories of dogs protecting people, especially children, from snakes are so common that they might be the most prevalent type of life-saving animal rescue. Perhaps it’s a matter of circumstance, since snakes often live near humans, or perhaps dogs just share Dr. Jones’s feelings on the matter.

In any case, snake stories illustrate, time and again, that dogs will deliberately put themselves in harm’s way to save a person, since when it comes to snakes, dogs often pay a price for their heroism.

Consider this small sampling (in which, by the way, all the dogs survived):

In 2003, in Hudson, Florida, Fran Oreto’s seven-year-old golden retriever Brutis saved her two young grandchildren, age two and four, by grabbing a writhing, biting sixteen-inch coral snake in its mouth as the snake slithered in the backyard grass near the kids.

In 2007, in Masonville, Colorado, one-year-old Booker West was saved when the family’s ten-month-old Chihuahua, Zoey, raced around a birdbath and in front of the toddler just as a three-foot rattlesnake struck—biting Zoey in the head instead of Booker.

In January 2012, near Ipswich, Australia, two young girls went out their front door to play. One girl saw a brown snake coiled beneath the swingset and yelled, “Snake!” Immediately, their Australian cattle dog, River, emerged from the house, attacking and killing the snake despite the bites she received.

In June 2013, a husband and wife were hiking in Marin, California, when their thirteen-month-old Anatolian shepherd, Shakira, jumped back and refused to let the wife past. An unseen rattlesnake sat right where the wife was about to step. Wisely, Shakira neither barked nor attacked, allowing the snake to slither away.

In August 2013, in Hueco Tanks, Texas, two young sisters were playing in the mud when a hiss and rattle announced an unseen rattlesnake coiling to strike. At that moment, the family’s ten-pound Chihuahua-poodle mix, Psycho, ran in between and took the strike in the face.