Shelby | The Cobra from Hell
Authored by Kimberly Urban, aka “Dr Viper”
Shelby was, well is (I don’t own him anymore, but he’s still alive) an albino monocled cobra (Naja kaouthia). I bought Shelby as a young hatchling from a friend of mine who breeds cobras. Shelby was just an adorable baby and a very neat little snake. He was about 8-10 inches long at first, and lived in a 10-gallon tank with a hide shaped like a Sherman tank that he could rise up out of the top of. Shelby was active, but not aggressive, and would hood only when I fed him. My husband was not fond of Shelby from the start, but I was enamored. I love cobras, and finally owning one was rewarding for me.
However, all of that changed when puberty hit little Shelby.
At about nine months of age and two feet in length, Shelby turned into a psychopathic, stalking monster! He spent every waking moment pushing at the corners of his cage as if trying to escape. He hooded and hissed and charged the door of his cage whenever anyone was in the room, even if they were nowhere near him. He would hiss, strike, writhe and fight every time I had to remove him to clean his cage. I purchased a trap box so that I could clean when he was in the box and I could just lock him in there and move about the cage without danger.
Every month that went by without me hooking and tailing and working with Shelby resulted in him growing larger and more aggressive. It got to the point where I had to drape a dark towel over his cage door so he couldn’t see me and would stop striking the glass door! The last straw for me came when I cracked open Shelby’s door to give him water while he was “sleeping” in the back of the cage. Shelby was alert, and pushed off the back of the cage in seconds. He flew at the door, skidded up it, out of the cage, over my shoulder and onto the floor.
Now, most snakes, even venomous ones, will tend to look for an escape route and head under the nearest large object if they get out of their cages. Not Shelby- he looked around, zeroed in on me, reared up and hooded, and charged at me open-mouthed. My hook was out of reach on the other side of the room, so I retreated. My basement snake room also contains the washing machine and clothes dryer, so I jumped backwards. Shelby chased me right onto the dryer, the only high ground I could get in the moment. I managed to get my tongs and grabbed Shelby by the hood while he was lunging. He hissed, I cursed and sweated, but I managed to wrestle him back into his cage and slammed the door. Shelby, enraged at his recapture, struck the door and left two streaks of venom dripping menacingly down it….
I walked upstairs, calmly poured myself a glass of Bourbon, and called a friend of mine who kept a lot of cobras.
“Do you want another one?” I asked, “Come get this maniac; I’m done!”
Shelby now lives with him, breeding lots of female cobras and terrorizing the family. He’s pushing 4 feet long now, and from what I hear hasn’t calmed down at all. He’s just going to have a full dose of attitude his whole life! And that’s the story of the only snake I’ve owned who ever actually frightened me, and also why I stick to vipers now.