Dogs and snakebite

[CAJUNLAWYER]

The dog got to the vet and got antihistamines and antibiotics. Vet said it'll probably survive.

And the bill was much less than expected, as both the doc and the owner are Texas Aggies...

Not a Texas Aggie. That being said both my sister in law and her children are Aggies and I must say their esprit de corps is absolutely remarkable and I mean for life. If you are a graduate of Texas A&M you are in the brother/sisterhood for life and believe me Aggies take care of each other!!!! I've seen it first hand with my niece and nephew getting jobs, etc. The Aggie nation is NOT a myth!

 

[TX-Dennis]

I'm a bit late for my advice to be helpful, but vets most definitely will give antivenin to a dog. One of my wife's three little yappers got bitten on the nose by a small diamondback last year. I was at work, and she hauled her off to the emergency vet clinic where the dog was given antivenin and a steroid injection as well. She recovered just fine and is no worse for the experience. My wallet is $800 lighter, though.

A friend has had several larger dogs bitten by diamondbacks over the years. None of them were treated by a vet, and all survived after being sick and swollen up for a couple of days.

 

[Turq]

My cat got bit on the paw...it swelled up horribly. Vet gave him some pain killers and sent us home. There was a young dog that was also there at the same time. He got bit in the face twice...He got anti venom and a pain killers. Poor guy was howling for a long time. He was spending the night. I'm not sure how much exactly, but from what I gathered that anti venom shot is very expensive.

 

[Mule Packer]

This is a Weimaraner of maybe 70 pounds and facial swelling is baseball sized.

I was leading the pack string out of the Trinity Alps Wilderness area one year and tied up at the pack station at the Hobo Gulch Trailhead. The folks that ran the pack station there had a little Australian Shepherd that had been bitten on the face by a Western rattlesnake. This little dog weighed about 50 pounds and its head had swollen to about the size of a volleyball. They slipped four Tylenol down its throat and hoped for the best. The little guy laid around the pack station for a few days but then recovered completely.

You have to remember that a snake's venom is programmed to kill things like rats and mice, not dogs, and from most of the stories I've heard, most dogs seem to recover.

Not so for horses, however. Horses are usually bitten when they're out grazing and accidentally bump into one and are bitten on the nose. Their nostrils swell up and inasmuch as horses can't breathe through their mouths like a dog, they die from suffocation, not from the venom.

Anyway, it sounds like your friend's dog has a real good chance of making it.

 

[Mule Packer]

Sorry for the offense. It's gone.

WHOA!!! Wait just a minute!!! I didn't get to see it!! I've always felt that our ol' pard Iggy had impeccable taste when it came to pictures. C'mon on, Iggy. Post it again for the inquiring minds who've got to know!

 

[shell627]

WHOA!!! Wait just a minute!!! I didn't get to see it!! I've always felt that our ol' pard Iggy had impeccable taste when it came to pictures. C'mon on, Iggy. Post it again for the inquiring minds who've got to know!

I agree I don't like snakes but Iggys post is not offensive. And I am tired of everybody being offended.

 

[Paseclipse]

My families Beagle got nailed on the back of his tongue by a Mojave green rattlesnake about a month ago. We rushed him to the vet and he spent 4 days there. Not sure how much antivenin he was given but he made it though everything. Vet bill was over $6,000 and it took him about two weeks to get back to normal.

 

[usmc2427765]

I spent my early , 1952-1959, summers on a farm in South Texas that was thick with rattlesnakes. Whenever one of the dogs got bit and they got bit often, my uncle would give it large doses of Penicillin that he kept in on hand for the farm animals. Seems to me most survived.

 

[BearBio]

I was leading the pack string out of the Trinity Alps Wilderness area one year and tied up at the pack station at the Hobo Gulch Trailhead. The folks that ran the pack station there had a little Australian Shepherd that had been bitten on the face by a Western rattlesnake. This little dog weighed about 50 pounds and its head had swollen to about the size of a volleyball. They slipped four Tylenol down its throat and hoped for the best. The little guy laid around the pack station for a few days but then recovered completely.

You have to remember that a snake's venom is programmed to kill things like rats and mice, not dogs, and from most of the stories I've heard, most dogs seem to recover.

Not so for horses, however. Horses are usually bitten when they're out grazing and accidentally bump into one and are bitten on the nose. Their nostrils swell up and inasmuch as horses can't breathe through their mouths like a dog, they die from suffocation, not from the venom.

Anyway, it sounds like your friend's dog has a real good chance of making it.

For some reason, snake venoms are particularly dangerous to primates. Maybe a Red Queen phenomenon (AKA Evolutionary Arms Race)?

 

[Doug M.]

I agree I don't like snakes but Iggys post is not offensive. And I am tired of everybody being offended.

*
I was not offended. Doing so requires a lot of effort in general and probably would require conduct that would in fact result in being banned.

It's just that Iggy has posted that pic a few times and judging by the responses, I am not the only one who looks at it in horrified fascination and still cannot pull their eyes away. I was flipping him some ... grief. It's good size pile of writhing rattlesnakes.