I came home from a matinee one Friday afternoon and, as usual, Cali was waiting for me at the door.

And, as usual, she wanted to go explore in the garage.

The garage has become Cali's version of “outside” now that she is a permanent resident. She gets to wander around, investigate things, sniff whatever apparently needs sniffing...act big, bad, and predatory, and generally conduct whatever important feline business is taking place out there.

So I opened the door and let her go.

Only this time, she came running back inside.

Not eventually.

Not after deciding she'd had enough of her adventure.

She bolted inside.

That was unusual, yes, but not unusual enough for me to think much about it. Cats are, well...cats, right! Cali has never exactly been known for providing detailed explanations of her decisions.

I went about the business of changing into my 'chill out' clothes when my phone gave me a Ring notification.

Movement at the front door.

Normally, I ignore most of those.

Around here, “movement” is frequently a shadow, a leaf, a passing car, or something else that has apparently decided my Ring camera needs to document its existence.

But for whatever reason, I picked up the phone and checked it.

And then I did a double-take.

Then a triple-take.

Because crawling up my front door frame, right beside the Ring camera, was a snake.

And not a little snake.

This was a big snake.

As in, roughly six feet of “Oh, you've got to be kidding me.”

Suddenly, Cali's Exit From the Garage Made a Lot More Sense

I went outside through the garage, of course—because I had zero interest in meeting the snake at the front door—and there he was.

He was climbing toward a small crack underneath the overhang above the entrance.

Which presented me with a fairly simple problem:

I could either deal with the snake outside... or potentially deal with a snake inside.

Guess which one I picked?

Sure. I grabbed a wooden pole from the garage and knocked him down from the door frame.

He didn't show any aggression, and honestly, I didn't want to hurt him.

I just wanted him to understand that this particular piece of architecture had NO VACANCY.

So I flung him out into the yard.

He immediately made a beeline for the corner of the house.

Which was not particularly comforting.

Because I had just spent the previous few minutes thinking, Please don't go toward the house.

So I flung him again.

This time, he headed into the front yard and eventually climbed one of my large maple trees.

And that's where our negotiations ended.

I wouldn't exactly call it a victory, nor a stalemate.

But at least the snake was no longer on my front door, headed toward a crack above my entrance.

I'll take it.

And Then I Started Thinking About Cali

The funny part is that Cali had already encountered the situation before I even knew there was a situation.

She went into the garage.

Something clearly didn't look... or maybe smell... right to her.

And she immediately turned around and came back inside.

Meanwhile, I walked through the house, went about my afternoon, and had absolutely no idea that there was a six-foot snake making its way toward my front door.

Now, I have no idea whether Cali actually saw the snake. It very well could have been in the garage before venturing toward another hiding spot.

So, maybe she did see him. Maybe she smelled him. Maybe she heard something.

Maybe she simply encountered something in the garage that she didn't like and decided, “Nope. We're done here.”

That's the thing about living with animals.

We often assume we're the ones paying attention to what's happening around the house.

But our pets? Well, they are experiencing the same environment through senses that are very different from ours.

They notice smells we don't notice.

They hear things we don't hear.

They see movement we may never register.

And sometimes they react to something long before we understand what caught their attention.

Pets Notice More Than We Think

That doesn't mean every strange reaction is a warning about an impending disaster.

Sometimes a cat is just being a cat.

Sometimes a dog suddenly stares at an empty corner because apparently the wall has become fascinating.

Sometimes they run out of a room for reasons that remain classified.

But those reactions can still remind us of something important:

Our pets are constantly taking in information that we aren't.

That's one reason it's worth paying attention when your pet suddenly behaves differently.

Maybe they're reacting to another animal outside... a new sound or smell. Or, maybe something in their environment has changed.

Or just maybe they're simply telling you, in their own very subtle way, that something doesn't feel right to them.

As For Me...

I love animals.

Pretty much all of them.

But I have to admit that snakes and I have some work to do on our relationship.

I don't want to hurt them. I understand they're part of the environment, and that big guy wasn't aggressive toward me at all...which I greatly appreciate.

But there is something about seeing six feet of snake crawling up your front door that makes the calm, rational animal lover in you briefly disappear.

I never saw that particular booger again.

But I will tell you this:

After that afternoon, I started checking every single Ring notification.

Every one.

Because apparently Cali and I had learned the same lesson that afternoon:

Sometimes you really should pay attention when something catches your pet's attention.

Especially when your Ring camera later reveals that the “something” is six feet long and apparently shopping for real estate.