A quick-thinking stranger who jumped a fence to save a puppy from the jaws of a python has been praised for his "unflappable" effort.
Sunshine Beach resident Sahra Douglas says without Stewart Brasier her four-month-old English staffy may not have survived its encounter with a 2.5-metre snake.
Ms Douglas was about to leave home earlier this week when she heard a commotion in her backyard and found Panda, the puppy, being suffocated by the python.
"I opened the door and looked down the side of the house and I just see this huge snake coiled around her," she said.
"You could barely see any dog, it was coiled around so tight."
Ms Douglas said she went into "panic mode" and tried to call people for help while taking her other dog out of harm's way.
"I grabbed a plastic mop and thought maybe I could wedge it in between the snake and the dog," she said.
"Then all of a sudden, this guy scales the back fence and he grabs the snake's head and wedges a hand in between where the snake is coiling around my dog's neck.
'I thought the puppy was a goner'
Ms Douglas said the snake was biting the puppy on the face as it constricted its whole body around the small dog.
Amid the chaos, Ms Douglas called Sunshine Coast Snake Catcher's Stuart McKenzie who talked the pair through how to handle the snake.
"So the neighbour's holding the snake head and the dog, and I've grabbed the tail of the snake and just start unwinding the snake," she said.
"I'm just fighting against every impulse to throw this thing.
"Eventually, we get the coils off the snake but the fangs were still left on my dog's face so we had to spend a lot of time actually trying to pull the fangs off my dog's head, which was just awful."
Stranger saves day
After the wrestle, Ms Douglas went inside to get a pillow case and quilt cover to keep the reptile safe until the snake catcher arrived.
"That was the most terrifying part, the gentleman that came to save the day was standing there with a head and a tail in one hand of this long, long snake," she said.
She said she could not have imagined what would have happened without Mr Brasier who was staying at an Airbnb next door.
"I thought in my mind 'that's dad energy', he must be a dad," she said.
"He was just unflappable."
Snakes on the move
Snake catcher Stuart McKenzie said Ms Douglas and Mr Brasier did a great job in rescuing the dog, while not hurting the snake.
He said while it was always best to call the professionals, in an emergency situation calmly trying to uncoil the snake worked best to not harm either animal.
"In an emergency situation where a python is wrapped around your puppy dog, there's probably not enough time for a snake catcher to get there," he said.
"The dog will probably be dead by then, unfortunately.
"The main thing is the bite from a python is not going to kill your dog, it's going to be more the constriction from the snake, so the main thing that needs to happen is to try and get the snake's coils off the dog."
He said he hears about cats and dogs being attacked by snakes "a couple of times a year".
"It's definitely something we need to create awareness around and make sure people know what to do," he said.
Ms Douglas said Panda is "miraculously well" despite recovering from lacerations caused by the snake's fangs.
