Why did the Vizslas cross the road?

It was a pretty chilly morning in Phoenix with high winds when I took Miska, Tyro & Diva out for their walk. When I say 'chilly', it was actually 60 deg F or 15.5 C, not really that chilly but I've acclimatized to AZ weather so it felt chilly to me, especially because of the winds.  Therefore I was really surprised to see something like this on the road right next to the sidewalk in front of a house that borders onto the desert. (This was around the corner and a few doors down from our house.)

Gopher Snake

Whoa I thought!! BIG SNAKE!  It wasn't curled up so I didn't know if it was dead or alive.  I also didn't know if it was a rattlesnake or not.  It was pale coloured and perhaps about 4 ft in length. and usually those are harmless Sonoran Gpher Snakes.  I couldn't see a rattle on its tale but then again, I wasn't going to go up to it and ask.  Or even poke at it to get it to move. 

So I decided we should give it a very wide berth and thus we four crossed the road.  When we returned from our walk, it was gone.  So the photo above isn't an actual picture of the snake we saw but a photo of a Gopher Snake.