snake bite

[coyotejoe]

This is my best buddy, Strider, a two year old German Shorthair/Brittany mix.
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e245/coyotejoe/Striderelectrified.jpg
This is Strider about four hours after being bitten by a rattlesnake. I never saw the snake, can't say how large it might have been but at 7500 feet elevation they generally don't get very big, short growing season I guess. He had two punctures on the right side of his snout, about an inch apart.
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e245/coyotejoe/Striderbitten2.jpg
 He had the rattlesnake bite vaccination last summer but we forgot about it this year. Still, I think that saved his life. He is terrible swollen and in great pain but the vet feels he should be fine in a few days. We got him to the vet in just over an hour after the bite. He was given steroid injections to help with the swelling and pain but that is no cure. Here he is six hours after the bite.
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e245/coyotejoe/Striderbitten.jpg
The swelling extended down the throat to the bottom of the brisket. He looked like a bloodhound, a very old bloodhound. It's now been about 48 hours and the swelling is reduced but he still moves very little and very carefully.
 I am a believer in the vaccination. It only cost $15.00 along with your dog's regular annual shots.  An anti-venom injection runs about $400.00.  The vaccination is not a substitute fro the anti-venom but is cheap insurance.  With the vet we debated anti-venom and decided he'd be OK without. He is a luck puppy but at this point I don't think he feels lucky at all.

[Ranger J]

In our area of the Ozarks we have a few timber rattlers but a world of copperheads.  Last year I dispatched seven copperheads in my yard.  My dogs alerted me to all but one of these.  They just don't like the critters and will harass them if and when they get in the yard.  Over the years I have had three dogs that showed signs of being bitten during one of these confrontations.  This year we have had an Aussie Border collie cross and a lab-Pyrenees pup (forty pounds at time) bitten.  In all three cases the dogs were bitten around the head area and displayed some swelling.  As copperheads are not real poisonous compared to rattle snakes when one shows signs of being bitten we start giving two Benadryl tablets every six hours until the swelling goes away.  This is on advice of our vet and seems to help with copperhead bites.
RJ

[hillbill]

that dog will be fine. i had a b&t pup a few years ago bitten by a huge copperhead and his head swole up size of a 5 gal bucket, he was fine in a few days.

[Ray Ford]

Reminds me Queen.  She was mixed hound--and possibly something else.  Her color was dirty black with markings like a Black and Tan.  The markings were not a rich tan but creme colored.  She had a large white spot on her chest.  She started her hunting career as a combination Squirrel and O'possum dog around Okmulgee, Oklahoma.  It was said of her that a person could take her to the woods in the evening, tree 25 'possums, and be home and have the skinning done by 9 p.m.  That may have been an exageration, but she would tree 'possums and Squirrels. 

I was in my lower teens when the older man that I hunted with, Al, bought her for $35.  She had just raised a big litter of pups and was terribly skinny and wormy.  He promptly wormed her and poured the feed to her.  Soon, she was almost too fat, and she stayed that way as long as I knew her.

With her up in good shape, Al drove to the bottom, parked his old Dodge pickup, and opened his dog box.  She hit the ground moving and treed within a stone's toss of the truck--a 'possum.  By the time Al got to the tree, Ole Blue, a straight Bluetick, started a 'coon trail.  Al called Queen off her tree, and she went to Ole Blue.  After that first 'coon experience, she stopped treeing 'possums and concentrated on 'coon until she got too old to keep up with other dogs.  When they would leave her behind, she would stop and start treeing 'possums.  At my age, I understand the move.

But I digress.  One evening, while hunting on the Deep Fork, she apparently encountered a Cottonmouth.  (We didn't know the kind of snake for sure, but we were in Cottonmouth habitat.) By the time she returned to the truck, her head was "big as a lard bucket."
With no treatment but rest, food, and water, she recovered completely.

During the several years that I hunted with Al and Queen, I had several well-remembered experiences.  Once, after Al had a leg broken when a horse fell with him, we went out to a 600-acre bottom west of the Deep Fork west of Okmulgee and took Queen.  He was wearing a cast and using crutches.  We found a spot near the center of the Bottom, built a fire, and sent the old hound out.  She went north and was gone for about an hour.  She came back in, walked around the fire and us a while, then headed out south.  In about another hour, she returned, walked up near the fire, and sat down.  Al said, "Well, we might as well go in.  There's nothing movin' tonight."  She followed us back to the truck and jumped in the dog box.  We drove back into town.

Don't sell Copperheads short when it comes to deadly venom.  A friend of mine recently found one of her females dead in her pen.  On inspection of the pen, she and her son found a Copperhead in the dog house.  And I have lost two dogs in their pens to what I believe to be Copperheads.  Snakes will go into the pens after rats/mice that feed on dog feed.  That is especially true if self feeders are used.  And I've known of people who spent as much as two weeks in the hospital after a bite by a Copperhead.

I have found snakes, and other animals, dead in pens: my Boston Terriers had dispatched them.  I have a mean strain of the little screwtail dogs.

[hemiram]

When I lived out west, my old Beagle used to get bit by Black Widows all the time, he couldn't seem to leave them alone, and they were all over the place. He looked a lot like your dog, all swollen and kind of "drunk". The first time it happened, I was sure it was a snake or maybe a scorpion, but the vet looked him over and said it was probably a Black Widow or another spider, and gave him a couple shots and the next day, he would be fine. And he was, but he was kind of wiped out for a couple of days afterwards.

A friend of mine had a Lab/St. Bernard mix that was insanely huge, and looked like a Lion (At least to some people). He took off one day, and decided to sit up on a rock out in the desert, I was sitting at home, and over the scanner, I hear, "We have two reports of what the callers are saying is a Lion, sitting on a rock out in the desert, behind xxxx street!" I called my friend, and his girlfriend answered, and she told me he was out looking for the dog, who had jumped the wall behind the house. This was before cell phones, so she called the cops to tell them it was probably just their huge "puppy", and not to get crazy and shoot him. She found my friend a few minutes later, and he found the cops playing with him when he got over to where the "Lion" was reportedly found.

Not too long after that, he took off again, and came home on his own. He had something in his mouth, and my friend, thinking it was the usual rock, put his hand out and said, "Let me have it!", and he did. It was a man's petrified hand! He had been murdered and buried under a pile of rocks. Well, that got my friend and the dog on the news that week. The murder victim had been scavenged, and his lower legs were gone, but they found the rest of him, not far from my friend's house. About a year after that, the dog got bitten by a Rattlesnake, on the front leg, and had a nasty "pit" in the muscle from then on, but recovered quickly and lived a long happy life. He was fine one day, and died in his sleep. He was almost 13.

[Ray Ford]

On dogs and snakes:  I had a friend--he lived in south-central Oklahoma on an acreage with a large pond--who owned a Boston Terrier and Wirehaired Fox Terrier cross.  The dog had a thing for snakes.  He would stalk and catch the moccasins at the pond.  When he did catch one, he grabbed it in the middle of its body and started shaking it while biting down on it.  After a few shakes, the snake's head end would part company from the tail end and the two halves would fly in different directions.  He never, as far as I know, got bitten. This dog was produced from older strains of Bostons and Wirehairs, not the wimpy little house pets that are frequently bred and sold now.

I have been told that Wirehaired Fox Terriers are frequently natural-born snake dogs.  I had a little female that, on one occasion, showed that trait.  She, and several other dogs, were in my mother's back yard.  My mother heard the dogs "raising cain" and went to investigate.  There was a large snake--she did not know what kind it was--in the yard.  The Wirehair was going after it "hammer and tongs."  The other dogs were keeping their distance.  It was all my mother could do to keep the Wirehair away from the snake until it slithered through the fence.   

[hemiram]

I have a dog right now who is a great mouser/bug hunter. I haven't seen a snake since I've lived at my present location to see if he would go after one or not, but I'm sure he would be good at it. When they build new houses around here, the mice appear, and off he goes, totally obsessed with
catching, and eating mice. One he starts, he patrols the house, stopping in front of every closet, listening. if he hears something, he will crash into the closet door, and almost always gets the door open eventually, and dives in. The last one got past him, but stupidly stopped when he could be seen,
and King got him, and gulped him down. This last summer was a big Cicada year, and he became hooked on checking the trees in the back yard and gobbling them up when he got lucky. He brought one in the house, and spit it out. My other dog went into a panic, and practically climbed the walls trying to get away from it while it buzzed around on the kitchen floor. King just watched it for a while, and soon, Molly decided it had to be attacked, and just as she got the nerve up to go after it, he swooped in and snatched it away from her. He does that with dog biscuits and toys, etc, and seems to enjoy taking stuff away from her at the last second.

One of his best "tricks" he plays on her is to take a dog biscuit, make a big show out of playing with it in front of her, and then pretending to go to sleep next to it. Molly is an eating machine, and it doesn't take long before she has to have it. When she finally makes her move, King suddenly comes to life, and snarls and gives her the evil eye. Molly runs to the couch and looks confused. King then makes a huge show when he finally eats it. The same trick has worked for almost nine years. She never seems to figure it out.

[Ray Ford]

Hemiram,

Your dog King, in his relationship with Molly, reminds me of a step-brother I had when I was about 10 years old.

On a more serious note, if King regularly consumes mice, check him regularly for tapeworms.  A dog can ingest all the tapeworm eggs he encounters and not get a tapeworm.  There are two varities of canine tapeworms and both require an intermediate host.  In one case, the egg is ingested by a flea.  It then hatches and goes through a stage of development.  If the flea is then ingested by a dog, the dog will digest the flea and the tapeworm larva takes up residence in the dog, mature, and start producing segments--which contain the eggs.  In the other case, the egg is ingested by a mouse.  It then hatches and goes through a stage of development preparing for the time when the mouse is eaten by a dog.  The surest indicator of tapeworms is passage of segments.

The intermediate host for a human tapeworm is a fish.  The fish consumes the tapeworm egg.  It then hatches, and the larva burrows into the muscle tissue of the fish.  The admonition flowing from that fact is this:  Cook your fish well!!!

[hemiram]

He's a real "character", as my grandmother used to say. Like a cat in some ways, doesn't really listen too well. Sleeps way more than any dog I have ever had, to the point I was convinced he was sick when he was little, as
he slept all night from day one, while sister Molly was up and down all night, like every previous pup I ever had. His insane energy level when he was awake should have given me a hint it's just the way he is, but I wanted to be
sure and wasted money on blood tests, etc anyway. Molly is an eating machine, eats more than any dog I've ever had, and never puts on an ounce. King is the pickiest eater I have ever had, and won't each cheese much at all.
A lot of the time, he will try to eat something to keep it away from Molly, and he looks like it's the most disgusting thing there ever was, and takes it between his front teeth and has a look like he's in terrible pain. Usually, once
he decides it's nothing he wants, he lets Molly have it, and will just walk away. He messes with her all the time, but if one of them gets sick or hurt, the other one goes to pieces. Just coughing is enough to get a big reaction.

How two dogs from the same litter can be so different, still amazes me. King is my "Dog of a lifetime", and is without a doubt, the smartest one I have ever had. If only his genius was used for good!


My last dog was a "sampler" and he got tapeworms all the time. Yuck. We finally stopped it by giving him a vitamin every day. If I stopped giving them to him, be would start getting interested in sampling again. My cat
Orville who suffered through a year of playing with King (He didn't seem to know it was playing until just before he went sour at 17) had a HUGE tapeworm when we picked him up at about 6 weeks in a parking lot in the winter.
How a tapeworm at least 15 feet long was in this little kitten was amazing. He had some problems and we didn't worm him until he was about 3 months old. From when he got the shot, and when we got home, he coughed up
the worm in his cat carrier. We tossed it, but when we told the vet, he said he would have given us money or credit for it, as it would have been the biggest one he ever had seen in a small animal, and would have put it on display.