And because my dog is a blood donor dog (first with LSU, now with UGA), and I cannot hold it anymore, cute doggies like her give their blood every other month to help dogs like your sister’s.
Wile E, perhaps the hospital sees so many snake bites that they have a stockpile on antivennin vials? I forget for how long they can be kept…
And I echo what she/he said, sometimes dogs can pull through with supportive care without the antivennin.
For whatever it’s worth the Copperhead antivenin I mentioned was $700 a vial and it was only after a great deal of searching and delay that they were finally able to locate a single vial.
As for the whip cracking of snakes, yes, I’d heard mention of folks doing just that. While it sounds like a great skill to have, I still pause to consider just how frightning it must be to do it for the first time, well remembering how that new cowhide whip from Six Flags popped me right in the face.
When I was in middle school I encountered a rattlesnake at close range in the rocky stream that flowed out of our front-yard pond (our driveway dammed the pond). I was scouting for frogs only a few feet from our driveway and saw a bleeding frog…when I leaned over further, there was a coiled rattler underneath the overhanging rock I was standing on. The snake had obviously just struck the frog and was waiting for the venom to take effect.
There’s no question that this was a rattlesnake – in addition to the rattle, he or she was threatening me with mouth agape, the fangs prominently visible.
I straightened up everrrrrr sooooo slooooowly and then ran off.
I have to say, though, that it never occurred to me or anyone in my family (as far as I know) to go back and harm the snake, even though the encounter was right in our front yard and my mom’s family comes from a long line of snake-phobic people.
When I say snake-phobic, I mean these folks regularly bought new garden hoses and extension cords because family members would mistake the coiled hoses or cords for snakes and attack them with hoes. The worst moment was probably a story my mom tells about a family reunion at which a child’s shoelace came untied and wrapped around his leg while wading in a stream. The other children, many of whom had been conditioned by their elders to fear snakes, saw the shoelace and screamed “SNAKE!” and began to run back to the family pavilion. Without exception, all (seventy-something?) adults decamped immediately and fled for the cars before the children arrived – no one remained behind to save the children.
We never saw our rattlesnake again, despite not taking any precautions or avoiding the area. Later at another house we had a pair of blacksnakes living in the tree right in front of the house, sunning themselves most afternoons. I guess I can’t tell other people they have to reach détente with poisonous reptiles, but I hate to see them killed just on principle.
Applying a couple rules of thumb to the situation, a normal healthy adult can expect to survive a rattlesnake bite provided the snake injects into muscle and not a large artery/vein, but they’ll be quite sick for a few days; a dog as big as a Malinois can be approximated as a small human adult for first aid purposes.
Coral snake bite patterns are different than pit vipers, because you do not see the two large punctures. They bite repeatedly, and you see many bite wounds with lots of little punctures. Also FTR, coral snake venom is a neurotoxin, where pit viper venom is a combination hemo and muscle tissue toxin.
Here in the Dismal Swamp, we have copperheads, moccasins, and rattlers, with the copperheads being the most common.
Most often. But as Crotalus pointed out, a few have neurotoxic components as well. Aside from more tropical species like the aforementioned Crotalus durissus, in the U.S. the venom of most populations of the Mojave Rattlesnake ( Crotalus scutulatus ) is neurotoxic and exceptionally dangerous.
“Mojave Greens” are in fact probably the most dangerous snake in the U.S. on an individual level. Big mouth, large venom supply, extremely toxic and I’ve never met one that wasn’t pretty belligerent. Granted I’ve only interacted with populations in what is today the Mojave National Preserve - it’s not uncommon for temperament to vary with geography and in the case of this snake venom toxicity actually varies with population. But while some species of rattlesnake are generally mellow ( my local Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes, for example ), some are nasty. The Mojaves I’ve encountered have been nasty.
Another “the last thing you want to do” post on one of the snakebite message boards is “give the victim [whether dog or human] an aspirin for the pain”. Apparently this has been done before. (Viper venom thins the blood, and aspirin is a blood thinner also, thus the odds of bleeding to death are increased.)
I’ve heard that the only reason the rattlesnake has a reputation for being so deadly to begin with is the old habit of giving snakebite victims alcohol, in an attempt to treat the bite. You’d be much better off with no treatment at all than with the whiskey treatment.
Rule of thumb now seems to be “don’t do anything” if you’re within ambulance reach. One site said that tourniquets can be beneficial but only if you absolutely know what you’re doing and aren’t just tying them based on a 30 year old memory of a first aid class; tied incorrectly they can do far more harm than good.
The dog came home today. She’s having to wear a cone and my sister was happy by the fact that her paperwork marked her behavior for the past couple of days as “unpredictably agressive” because, “That’s my Dixie!” (and it is).
They also discovered mammary tumors unrelated to the snake bite that will need to be removed, so she’s seeing the snakebit as perhaps a good and heaven sent thing. (:rolleyes:)
And an older vet who examined her said “absolutely a rattlesnake bite, no doubt of it”. Living in south Alabama he’s seen many of them and so perhaps he recognizes some surefire signs.
I’m glad she’s back at her house and being her cranky self again. 