Snakebit

Snakebit

It's been a while since we had a snakebite among our dogs, but we have a 9-month-old here at Chez T99 who came back in from his morning run with some kind of bite on his front paw.

We never see the precise snakes that cause the problem; the dogs just come limping back to the house saying "Mom!" Here in Texas we have all four of the U.S. poisonous types: rattlesnake, copperhead, water moccasin (cottonmouth), and coral snake. The ones we see from a distance here on our mixed woodland-and-swamp site are mostly cottonmouths, but at least one of the past dog bites, to judge from its effects, must have been a rattlesnake.

Normally the only way we can tell what kind of bite a dog got is that a cottonmouth bite swells and then goes down after a few days, whereas a rattlesnake bite leads to pretty nasty tissue damage over the following week or two. I'm not even going to link to any of the pictures of afflicted dogs, which are easy enough to find on the webtubes if you're interested. The best thing I can say about the symptoms is that they look a lot worse than they really are in terms of danger. We've had only one dog suffer those unforgettable effects. He pulled through, despite some alarming brown pee that indicated kidney damage and required a couple of days of IV fluids, with only a little piece of missing lip that gives him an endearing sneer.

The good news this morning is that part of the reason we can't tell what kind of snake it was is the beneficial effects of the rattlesnake vaccine we've administered to all of our dogs. The vaccine is made for rattlesnake venom but has some effect on the similar venom of copperheads. It has no effect, apparently, on moccasins. It's quite moderately priced and available through most vets in snaky country like this. Most reports suggest that it greatly reduces the danger of a rattlesnake bite. I'm encouraged so far: our little 45-pound newcomer's swelling is limited to his foot, whereas past bites to his buddy have led quickly to a severe swelling of the entire leg. The vet administered some penicillin for the dirty puncture and some corticosteroids for pain and swelling. We opted not to drive into the nearest city for wildly expensive and probably unnecessary antivenin.

We have a zillion snakes here. The little guy is going to have to learn to leave them alone. His buddy, a slightly larger dog without much sense, has either learned his lesson or has become immune at last.