comfortable during recovery from snake bite

Our Great Pyrenees was bitten yesterday morning by a rattle snake. The prognosis
is hopeful. She is on an antibiotic, a diuretic, and a pain pill every
twelve hours. Since she was bitten on the nose her muzzle is swollen
and tender. She is having a difficult time finding a comfortable
sleeping position because of tenderness in that area. We have tried
sliding a pillow under the jaw area but that doesn't seem to help.Does
anyone have any suggestions?
Daniel & Cherie
------Pic below to get an idea------

 

Ouch...that looks familiar. I dont know what kind of snakes they have in Arizone, I used to live in the High Desert area in California (Victorville) and we mostly saw dogs that were bitten by Mojave Greens (usually dont see any or only minimal swelling from them) or like the Diamondbacks, the dogs look like your pup does. The usual meds to go home with that weve given are antibiotics and pain meds, I dont know what pain meds your using but most of the vets Ive worked with will give a script of Torbugesic in a syrup, it can be given every 4-8 hours as needed (even for large dogs), the liquids seem to be better because its usually hard for them eat due to pain (if we treat them in hospital we put them on IV Morphine which is much stronger). There isnt anything else you can do at home(that I can think of) to make her more comfortable other than if the area (the swollen part) is hot make sure she has a cool area to lay on if she wants to, is she eating and drinking yet? sometimes they will try to drink a little but again partly due to the pain they are reluctant to eat, especially dry food, I generally make a sloppy mushy food them, just add a lot water and some canned food and mix it up or even some baby food, its not unusual for them to go 24-48 hours without food though, as long as there are no other medical conditions then just make sure she is drinking. Sometimes they will lick on ice cubes. It takes a few days before the swelling starts to go down but from what Ive seen they are starting to look and act a bit better by day 3-4 although it will take a bit longer to get back to normal.

Hope that helps a little.

 

Snake Bite Recovery Period

Thank you for your reply. It is VERY helpful. She hasn't eaten except for some chicken broth with rice, she didn't touch the chicken and not much of the rice. She has been drinking water though. At least we now have a time frame to give us a general idea of when we may see some improvement. Our floors are ceramic tile so although they are hard they are cool to the touch. As soon as she recovers she and the rest of our "brood" are enrolling in the snake "run like hell" classes.

Thanks again
Daniel & Cherie

 

I was looking for a link for a guy that does snake classes in S.California but I forgot his name However I did find a few on Google in Arizona, if you dont already have info just put in snake+class+dog you should have some come up or your vet will most likely know of one near you. I know a couple of people who took their dogs through the guy in CA, one of the women was telling me that one of her dogs that went through the training (it only took about an hour or less and this particular guy uses a shock collar which I detest BUT for this type of training I weigh up the fors and againsts in using it and would have to say that from what Ive seen its the most effective way of doing it :? ), after about 5 years the dog will still avoid anything that resembles a snake...including the coiled up hose she had left out in the yard....

Hope you pup is starting to feel a little better, let your vet know ASAP if you think she is either not improving at all or seems to get worse, like I said it can take a bit of time to feel better, Ive never been bitten by a snake but according to the experts (and people who have) it can be extremely painful.

 

Hugs to your pup! That looks very painful. I'm sure it helps that she is such a BIG dog, huh? I hope she feels better real soon.

I have a dumb question though. Why wasn't she given anti-venom? Is that not usually done for dogs?

 

Comfort during snake bite recovery

She seems to be improving. She is more alert and has gone outside on her own to releve herself. I think the swelling has come down some. She passed the 48th hour at 5:00AM this morning.
I agree we will be doing the shock classes. We need our dogs (10) not to have experience this again. We live pretty far out in the desert so snakes are something we have to deal with.
To answer the question of 10 dogs?!! Yes five we chose to be part of our family, then five others (abandoned or dumped in the desert) chose us. Where we live there are sadly stray dogs everywhere.
Concerning the question of why we didn't use anti-venom. It is too expensive for us to be an option.
Thanks for your good wishes.
Daniel and Cherie

 

Definately not a dumb question, its usually the first thing people ask, as Maori said the cost is high, we used to charge upwards of $300-$400 a vial. The other thing is a lot of vets (the ones Ive worked with) generally dont use it on dogs that are bitten by the Diamondbacks (Im only familiar with a couple of types of snakes though and this referes to just the ones in S.CA). The ones bitten by Mojaves they do use it on if we get them in time but there is also a time limit on how well it will works.

 

Oh man poor baby.
I sure am glad she is doing better.
Diamond back or Southern Pacific rattlers are far less fatal than the Mojave Green. But it is still very touchy no matter how you go about it.

 

poor thing, she looks miserable, that is my bidg fear because we have rattlers here, I think they are the diamonback, a couple of my neighbors dogs got bit and survived, I dont know if they did the anti-venom or not,

good luck with her recovery

 

Mike do you ever get the Mojaves up there or are they just on the flats down here, Ive always known them to be just on the flats (I mean the desert)? Do you know anything about them possibly mutating? I saw a show with Sean Bush at Loma Linda last year and there was a guy that was bitten by a snake, I cant remember which way round it was though, I think he was bitten by a Diamondback but he had the symptoms of both the d/back and the Mojave and there was some talk about them adapting or mutating, he had caught the snake that bit so they had a positive ID on it. Since I left there Ive kind of lost track of what happend with it, if they found out for definite.

 

Yes DelaUK we do get the little green bastards up here I have a scar on my leg as a reminder, and it was only a scratch. The predominate viper in Big Bear is the Southern Pacific Rattler and it comes in many colors and subspecies http://www.montereybay.com/creagrus/CArattlers.html
Including the western rattlers (diamondbacks) I handled snakes for a few years and had heard of some folks saying there was a mutation between the mojave and a more common rattler but never obtained any proof of such a cross.
It is very odd you asked as I had a bad dream last night that I was bitten on the neck by a green.
Mojave Greens have a combo venom that is both neuro and hemo toxic if I remember correctly where the common rattlers are only hemo toxic.
(For those that do not know Hemo toxic is blood and muscle neuro is nerveous system and muscles)
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic541.htm

I have held snakes from a 7.5 foot Black Southern Pacific rattler that bit my hand, to a 4 inch Mojave Green I found under an oak leaf. I am totally fascinated by reptiles and amphibians.

 

Thanks for the links Mike.

Ive held dozens of snakes....and 8ft albino Indian Ball Python, more pythons, garter snakes :wink: havent got that close to a live mojave or rattler, I got close to a King Cobra up in Chantry Flats once....I didnt know it was a King Cobra until the next day when I described to the vet I worked for in Arcadia....my friend and me ran pretty fast away from it, it was coiled and hissing....more than enough warning for me :lol: I grew up in UK, the only wild snakes there are adders and I never saw one, only 'snake' I ever saw was....well probably an earth worm!!! so it took a bit of getting used to when I moved to CA.
The vet in Arcadia specialized in reptiles bút would never keep the large snakes in the hospital until this albino came in, I hadnt really worked with snakes before this one and the vet asked me to get a heart rate on it....have you ever tried to 'find' the heart on an 8ft snake :shock: took me a while....much to the amusement of the vets and techs...., we were a little worried that he/she would have broken through the cage and eaten the other patients but everything was okay, we put him/her in a cage inside a cage with about 4 chained padlocks on it so the cleaning staff didnt decide to let it out or something. Ive worked with some large lizards, various types, had a 4 ft iguana lunge at me once when I opened the cage to give him an injection. The raptors were always cool to work with also....I was lucky in that´one of the vets there also works at LA zoo so we had a few very interesting animals that came into the hospital.....

Sorry about your dream, hope it wasnt anything I said :shock: