It’s hard to say what her chances are without seeing the bloodwork. And with rattlers, it’s often hard to say what the chances are with the bloodwork. Basically, it hinges on two things–whether or not she goes into DIC, and how much money your sister can throw at this. Best case scenario, you’re looking at several more days in the hospital and probably a couple more transfusions, then a long time of taking the dog back and forth for checkups and bloodwork and such.
Contrapuntal - You’re quite right. I blame the migraine meds. This snake was bigger around than my upper arm, but not that big.
StG
It helps with all North and South American pit vipers, including copperheads and cottonmouths. All pit vipers have venom which is basically hemotoxic in nature, meaning that it damages red blood cells, mainly causing them to allow too much fluid through their cell walls, causing the cells to burst. Some rattlesnakes have neurotoxic compounds in their venom as well. These compounds destroy or damage nerve cells. The inclusion of the South American rattlesnake species Crotalus durissus in the mix gives the polyvalent serum effectiveness against these neurotoxins.
The polyvalent serum is not a magic bullet, but it almost always helps.
Removed. I saw your first answer late and the second clarifies even more.
Does it make me a sad person that I was about to respond with “good lord, you know she’s going to throw a pile and a half of money at it - she’s rich as Croesus and you know how she feels about them dogs” and then realized I know way too much about people who are only related to people I know online?
And I didn’t respond to your reference to whether I had any knowledge of treatment. When I worked in a venom lab extracting venom from snakes, I spent a little bit of time acquainting myself with what needed to be done should I be bitten. The lab had a good supply of the polyvalent serum, as well as specific antivenins for most of the other species we extracted from. I think there was a polyvalent serum for Asian and African Elapids (cobras, kraits, mambas), but it was 30 years ago, so I may be misremembering. What I distinctly remember is the period during which we extracted venom from sea snakes (can’t remember what species). The venom was for a Japanese pharmaceutical firm which needed it to develop an antivenin for the particular sea snake species, because the existing polyvalent stuff didn’t work. :o We were VERY careful handling those snakes.
I have never been bitten by a poisonous snake, but I have witnessed a few bites, and even was present for the treatment of one bite.
ETA: Ha! I quoted your deleted post. So there.
ETA some more: it changed to the edited version of your post. How about that?
Crotalus - What do you think about the rattlesnake vaccine for dogs, as touted here?
StG
Quoth Sampiro:
I thought coyotes were indigenous to the entire North American continent?
Huh, I saw a water moccasin once at summer camp, and while everyone knew not to approach it, and that they were more dangerous than rattlers, it seemed perfectly content with just relaxing and catching some sun. Nobody thought it necessary or advisable to try to kill it.
Like eating food you’ve dropped on the floor, it’s only sad if you make the mistake of telling other people. I showed my friend with the pitbull mix your recent pit thread and he clicked on all of the pictures and then looked at more of yours. When I was able to name all three of your cats ( after thinking on it a second ), he turned and gave me a cocked eyebrow :p.
No, historically their range was limited to the Great Plains. They’ve expanded both east and west in the last century, until they’re now ubiquitous just about everywhere in the lower 48. One of the great success stories - most attribute it to the extermination of wolves and the thinning ( or clear-cutting ) of previously dense forests.
I’m a bit skeptical. It is possible that such a thing could be effective. The FAQ states that the vaccine causes dogs to “generate protective antibodies”. If they have figured out a way to do that without injecting rattlesnake venom into the dog, I’d like to read about how. If they are in fact injecting diluted venom, I would bet that this would cause some minor damage to the animal and would have at best a mild beneficial effect in the event of a bite.
The problems with this type of immunization are that they don’t last very long, and huge amounts of antibodies are required to effectively neutralize a large injection of venom. Immunizations for diseases typically have to deal with a small introduction of germs, which the body responds to early, preventing reproduction in the body. Snakebite involves all of the toxins arriving at once, although it can take a while for the venom to circulate. If enough venom is delivered to kill the animal, it takes a huge amount of antibodies to prevent that. I would be surprised if this product can cause a dog’s immune system to suddenly produce massive amounts of antibodies. The product may be able to reduce the damage of a non-lethal bite.
They’ve also found a pack of coydogs (a hybrid of coyote and domesticated dog) in the area. These are very rare because coyotes very rarely voluntarily breed with domesticated dogs (and in fact even though they’re essentially the same genetically they’re mortal enemies).
My sister’s dog is still hanging in there. Zsofia’s completely right in that my sister has already told the vets “Do what it takes and don’t worry about the cost”. She did do a kind of gulp when a mongoloid friend of her’s told her that antivenin is “thousands of dollars a vial and it can take a hundred vials”, but even then said that “I’ll go back to work or sell a house if I have to”, though I think since then she’s checked with the vet and was told that “Yes, it’s expensive, but nowhere near that expensive and nowhere near a hundred vials” for pit viper antivenin.
I think it’s closer to $200 a vial, so while the vet bill will be several thousand dollars, that she has without having to make any serious lifestyle adjustments. It’s telling of how much the obnoxious old dog means to her that, stingy as she is, she was prepared to meet a six figure vet bill. (I love my two dogs, but I hope I don’t sound like a bad person when I say I don’t ever want to be that attached to an animal [though a six figure vet bill wouldn’t be an option for me if my dog could speak in 9 languages and was working on a viable solution to the mortgage and bailouts crisis).
You mean Cooper’s dad? God, that’s kind of embarrassing. 
Geez, I love the Dope. If we aren’t arguing the Fourth Amendment rights of demons, we have a bunch of Parcelmouths with detailed information on what kind of antivenin is good for dogs.
Hope the pooch is OK, but let us know if your sister intends to reenact the monkey funeral scene from Sunset Boulevard if the dog dies.
Regards,
Shodan
Probably more like the opening funeral sequence in Evita. (She lives close to the Blue Angels and is probably in negotiations for a flyover.)
Meanwhile she seems to have laid off the vengeance plans and the dog is eating chicken and rice that my sister made (at the advice of the vet since it’s the dog’s favorite and she’s had no appetite) so she’s happy. I just hope the dog pulls through.
When my mother was dying she actually asked me to promise her that “if anything ever happens to [my brother-in-law] you’ll let your sister come live with you because you know she’ll go crazy if she’s alone”. I promised her I would. She also hedged around the elephant in the room to say “Please don’t say anything to her you don’t absolutely have to that might cause a falling out” (i.e. "don’t tell her you’re a pooftah because she ‘can’t handle the truth’ and may stop speaking to you over it and yet she needs you).
Of course my mother was the type who if a rattlesnake had bitten one of her kids would have said, with eery calm, “sweetheart keep that arm elevated above your heart til the ambulance gets here… I wonder if some of this tobacco in the wound would help- oh by the way, I emptied two 9 mm clips and the .22 into the bushes and then set them on fire so if the snake’s still in there he’s not having a good day”. Three days later somebody might cut her off in traffic and get a Molotov cocktail thrown at them when the panic set in, but during the crisis she would be completely calm. (I have the same temperament actually; when my father died during a snow storm the first thing I did after calling the ambulance was break apart some old bed slats for kindling, and when my mother died I made a list of pallbearers and a call list and got a tire fixed).
Had a rattlesnake bitten one of my mother’s dogs, save perhaps for a bald annoying Pekingese she had once that she was inordinately fond of, she’d have treated it herself if there’d been no vet and probably done a good job, and if the dog was suffering she’d have probably shot it in the head, buried it, cried a little, and then made dinner. (Unless it was one of our “welfare dogs” [strays who lived with us because we put out food for them but never sent for them] in which case she’d have skipped the crying.) To quote Mark Twain about his mother, “she drowned the kittens when it was necessary, but she warmed the water first”.
But, my sister’s different. And my mother never said anything about the dog dying plus my brother-in-law’s still alive. So I’m trying to prepare my defense if I don’t go down there immediately if, God forbid, my dog dies.
And meanwhile for more absurdity’s sake, my niece is in Paris and today lit a candle in Notre Dame for the dog. (Or said she did, but then as I told her in my email ‘the nice thing about being in France is you can tell me you did and I won’t know’.) And the dog is on any number of prayer lists.
A good thing about living in Alabama, btw, one I just learned this week, is that when you call 911 and tell them it’s for a dog they don’t act like you’re crazy. They just say “Oh my God I’m so sorry baby!” and switch you to the police who give you directions to the nearest 24/7 vet hospital and say (this is true) “and honey, you feel free to break every law in the book gettin’ there and if you get ticketed just let me know, I know folks in Florida and I’ll get it cleared up”. (This is per my sister, who did the actual 911 calling, but I have no reason whatever to doubt her.)
There was an odd age related dichotomy about snakes when I was a kid, due no doubt to just how close the people had lived to them in their lives.
While I grew up on the same farm as my father’s aunts and his cousins, I grew up in an air conditioned house and spent far more time watching TV than I did walking through briers and woods (which I did but only when it was necessary or I was hiding). A childhood encounter with a coiled rattler that I just barely remember (I remember the memory better than the event) also left me with a near phobia of the bastards, though the fact they’re snakes is enough to warrant them some fear. (There’s a reason the Bible never says the righteous need not fear a bunny or a litter of mewling kittens after all).
However, the old ones in the family, both male and female, who had lived most of their lives outdoors, had such a reckless fearlessness of snakes that I can’t believe they lived into their 80s and 90s. At different times I saw my grandfather, my great-aunt, and one of my cousins- all of whom lived to be ancient- grab snakes by the tail and pop its head off (i.e. snap it like it was a bullwhip and crush it’s head on the ground til it literally came off). I can’t swear they were all poisonous but I know for a fact the one my aunt (who was then in her 80s) was a copperhead, and the motion was nearly reflex. My grandfather said that when he was a little boy his grandfather, a former Confederate cavalry private, used to entertain his children and grandchildren (he had a pack of them the same age) by coming out with his cavalry saber whenever they’d found a venomous snake and cutting it into one piece for each kid, whichever one had found it getting the rattle if it was a rattler.
Sorry for the babbling, but the point is I hate snakes.
Also I’ve been doing research on snakebites the past few days. Something I thought interesting was that the sites are all unanimous in that the one thing you DON’T do is the thing that everybody knows to do, that being to cut the wound and suck the poison out. The consensus today is that unless you’re stranded in the outback or the Mojave you keep the victim calm and call an ambulance and make no attempt at all to take out the poison (or ‘pison’ as the ancients pronounced it) yourself.
So a factual question for anyone left reading: is it true that moth balls will keep snakes away?
I haven’t seen antivenin for $200 since I graduated as a Vet. Tech. 26 years ago, and that was our cost, not what we sold it for. We haven’t been able to get the Fort Dodge antivenin (the cheaper one used for animal) in over a year. We have had to buy the much more expensive CroFab for humans at a cost to us of about $1000 a vial. If they really have antivenin that cheap I need to find out where they got it.
I’ve never seen a big dog take more than a couple vials, usually one is enough. It’s the little dogs that often require muliple vials. I have also seen dogs survive snake bites with only supportive care, never having received antivenin. But if it’s been a few days now the dog probably needs blood products at this point.
So here’s a stupid question: where do you get the blood for transfusions for dogs? Does it have to come from a similarly sized dog or does it matter? For that matter does it have to be from a dog (i.e. while I’m relatively sure human blood isn’t used, is horse or cow blood usable?)
My sister offered her [enormous] Collie as a donor for the first [however much blood you get from a dog] but was told it wasn’t necessary.
Speaking of antivenin, there is evidently a world shortage. Any particular reasons for this? As Shagnasty pointed out, if you’re bitten (chewed) by a coral snake you’re REALLY s.o.l. because it’s next to impossible to get, and there are still many thousands of venomous snake bites to humans and animals each year all over the world.
(When I was a kid I remember a couple of our cows being bitten [separate occasions] and both pulled through fine with no AV and only the treatment of a “lay” veterinarian [i.e. an old guy with lots of animal treatment knowledge but no formal education], though of course cows are 20+ times the weight of dogs. My father wouldn’t allow them to be slaughtered though [they were beef cattle] because he was unsure whether the bites would affect the meat, nor would he allow them to be bred for a couple of years after.)
You get it from another dog, silly. Usually blood donor dogs are the larger dogs, over 50lbs. This way, you can get a decent unit of blood without sucking the animal dry. It has to be from a dog, not another species.
Dogs, unlike humans, do not have strong reactions with their first blood transfusion (ie, it can be from any type of blood in their blood classification system). With their second transfusion, then it is a bit risky, as the animal may have developed some antibodies against the foreign blood it received the first time (even though it didn’t do much damage the first time). The allergic reaction may still be generally mild (compared to humans).
Bigger places and specialty hospitals may have contacts with canine blood banks (they exist), or have their own storage and mini-blood bank. They probably type their donor dogs, and try to use those whose blood type is the most innocuous of them all. They also check that the blood donor is free from any blood parasite and disease. And they may even do blood compatibility before giving blood to the animal, that way insuring that both donor and recipient match. That is more advanced… Still, it is likely that the place your sister has your dog has a group of dogs that are on some sort of donation schedule, and it is likely they know their blood types (and their whole health history, important!), whereas they do not know with your sister’s other dog.