Yikes! 3-Foot Snake Found at Grosse Pointe Woods Home; Lou's to the Rescue!

Whatever you do, please don't say the "s word" to Isabelle Mason.

She'd rather not think about the 3-foot-long snake she found slithering in her front yard last week in Grosse Pointe Woods. 

Mason, who lives on Hollywood, was kind enough to share these pictures and her story with Patch, but she'll be happier when the memory of the snake in the grass is a distant memory.

Was she scared? "Yes," she says.

What was the snake like? "Don't say the s word, please?"

OK, what was it like? "Smelly. It smelled."

Mason made three calls after spotting the snake: 911, her brave neighbor Kathy Abke, and .

The Grosse Pointe Woods men in blue brought out nets, and Abke turned into something of a snake whisperer. The snake remained.

It was Lou's owner Donnie Cook, wearing a safari vest and armed with a styrofoam cooler, who was the hero of the day. Like a suburban Detroit Crocodile hunter, he captured the snake and showed it off for a few snapshots.

Cook told Mason he'd turn the snake over to the DNR. Pointers may think it's quite rare to see a snake in their front lawns, but Cook told Mason it was a Northern water snake — a native of the area that has fangs, bites but isn't venomous. (And that smell is typical of Northern water snakes, whose ill temper makes them crummy pets, according to www.watersnake.net.)

So there's the story. If you see Isabelle Mason around town, make small talk, but please no snake talk.