Rattlesnake Bite

My buddies lab was bitten yesterday morning in 28F weather. We had 4 dogs on the ground and she got hit. She’s the first pointing lab I’ve ever seen, a great close working bird finder and one hell of a dead bird dog. We took her to the vet in Olney and she should be ready to pick up tomorrow. They have a great emergency vet there and I’d recommend her to anyone. Never thought snakes would be a problem in this weather.

Dang.

That sucks! I've never bought into the "they are so slow" in the winter BS. A buddy of mine like to catch them. He had some in a bucket one day he's pulled from a den and it was about 35 degrees. He took one out and started messing with it. It was very fast. Glad the dog is making a quick recovery.

I killed one in the road going out the gate at the lease in Dickens County at 23 degrees a couple of years ago. It had been as low as 14 the night before. This was in December.

Crazy.

Dang it man. I would have thought they were denned up in that kind of weather.

That is crazy!

Glad she's ok...dang. I do snake avoidance every year but still never feel safe

I have seen them out in the Texas panhandle a few times when it was below 32 but that is far from the norm. Hope she is back out shaking the bushes soon!

GR

Gotta say I have never seen this before and really never thought it possible but now I do because you said so.

I hunted yesterday evening after work while my buddy picked her up in Olney. I stopped by his trailer and the dog looked pretty good. They had to do surgery to remove dead skin and left the wound open to drain but they said she’d be back to 100% once every ything heals up.

My buddy told his wife he was going to go ahead and spend the next two weeks bird hunting down at the lease so she could rest up and not have to be moved around.

that's good to know, never heard of that. glad your dog is going to be okay

She looks a lot like my lab. Did the snake envenomate when it struck her? Had she previously had the rattlesnake vaccine and was she current on that? The reason I ask, many dogs bitten in that area don't survive envenomation.

I hope she recovers fully.

That is some scary stuff. We all get complacent in this kind of weather.


I grew up hunting occasionally with a guy that worked for the SA zoo, with reptiles. His motto was that he would leave his snake boots at the house if the snow got over the tops.

Glad your dog is recovering. Who woulda thunk???? Scary....

Never understood insulated snake boots, but it is coming more clear to me now.

No such thing as a snake-free month in Texas......they can be found out and about any time of the year......

Glad the pup will be OK....

scalebuster, did anyone witness the bite?

We didn’t witness the bite or see the snake. We didn’t believe it was a snake bite but it kept getting bigger. It was the size of half my fist when we noticed it in the pasture and grapefruit size by the time we got to the vet. When we got to the vet she smelled the ooze and said she didn’t believe it, because of the weather, but it was definitely a snake bite. She said they had as many as 5 dogs at a time in the summer with rattler bites and the venom smelled distinct.

The dog had never had the snake vaccine so I don’t know if that would have made any difference. I vaccinate mine but have heard different opinions from several different vets on the effectiveness. When I had mine vaccinated the vet told me she couldn’t tell me if it made that much difference but she gave her own dog the vaccine. She figured for $20 it couldn’t hurt.

The only dog I’ve had bitten was a pointer before they had vaccine or antivenin for dogs, at least in Crane county, and he was bitten on the head several different times. The vet just gave us some green salve to put on it.

When this lab goes in for a dead bird she’ll get down on her belly and root into the thick cover. I figure she had to have gotten right on top of him.

how is she

Jim just texted me that she’s laid up on the couch in his travel trailer and doing better. He also texted me a pic of this snake killed today at a deer feeder by camp. Over 80F today. I didn’t get off work early enough to hunt. Too hot anyway.

Mmm looks like it died of lead poisoning