When a copperhead strikes
First experience with snake-bitten dog shows how no two bites are the same
Whiskey was nose-down and hot on the blood trail left by a hunter’s buck just after sundown last Saturday when one unfortunate step put us out of business.
I trailed with his fluorescent orange lead shining bright in my headlamp, tight in my grip and taught to his harness as he pulled me along. We approached a rocky oak ridge and Whiskey paused at the base of a large oak where the leaf litter was deep.
He picked up his head, possibly considering a route change or maybe because the buck had passed on the opposite side of that tree and he was testing the air, but suddenly he looked down, sprang to the side like a cat-like, wide-eyed, looking back at the tree now a good 20 feet away.
He held up his front left leg and I just knew, he started yelping that deep throaty help that tells you something really hurts, and I really knew. In my headlamp I could see something glistening on that leg. I ran to him and wiped the leg with bare hand (which was really dumb) and when the hunter, trailing behind us, arrived with his hand-held light we looked closely to see the red puncture wounds of a venomous snake’s bite under his fur.
What got him?
On relatively warm days autumn days—even as late as November—venomous snakes are a not an uncommon threat to hunting and tracking dogs in Oklahoma. Whiskey was lucky because, while he apparently got a pretty heavy load of venom, the snake most likely was a mature copperhead.
We did not see the snake and did not take the time or hazard the risk of looking for it in that deep leaf litter—plus it probably was gone anyway. It happened so quickly my guess is he stepped right on it, very near it, or he just happened to step smack into a path where that snake was laying, coiled and ready to strike any warm prey using that path.
The spread on the fangs showed us it was not a small snake, like a pygmy rattler or a juvenile snake, and that oak ridge in that area is most likely copperhead habitat.
We can’t completely rule out a cottonmouth or even a timber rattlesnake. Ol’ velvet tail has a soft rattle so we might not have heard it—if it rattled at all—in those leaves.
We were within the inhabited range of all three of those snakes, but my view was the most likely culprit in that terrain on a west-facing ridge was a copperhead that had come out to get some sun and maybe a meal before winter with a couple of consecutive days of temperatures near 70 degrees.
So, now what?
Give the dog Benadryl, keep it hydrated, try to move the affected limb as little as possible and, most importantly, get the dog to a veterinarian as quickly as possible: Those were the snakebite emergency moves I had engrained in my head.
The hunter, Richard Gill, was kind enough to carry Whiskey for a distance but he needed both hands. We were in the dark, in thick brush and in unfamiliar territory on a neighboring property so he needed to use the GPS app on his phone to lead us on the shortest route back to a dirt road on his property.
We each did carry Whiskey for a short distance, but with all the briars, and brush, and with a 70-pound dog in my arms, it didn’t take me long to think if we kept that up an injured dog might not be the only one needing a lift out of there that night.
Thankfully Whiskey’s harness has a handle on the top and I was able to lift him along and keep the weight off his feet as he used his rear legs or three-legged it along beside me on the trek back to the road.
We made it back to the truck in 20 minutes and Whiskey’s lower leg already was visibly swollen and he was a visibly sore, unhappy and tired looking pup. I put three 25-mg Bendryl tablets down his throat and Gill and his friend, who brought his pickup down the dirt road to give us a ride back to our SUV, held a water bowl for Whiskey to water up after that trek while I got ready to hit the road.
I threw our gear in the truck, called my wife, DeAnna, to tell her the news and ask her to check with the veterinarian and I pushed a few speed limits to get him to the Animal Emergency Center at 41st and State Highway 169 within an hour of the time he was bitten.
COVID-19 restrictions meant I couldn’t go into the lobby so a technician collected him in the parking lot and I sat there waiting for a phone call as I watched others arrive in the parking lot with worried looks and injured dogs and cats in their arms.
Bring my baby home
Ultimately Whiskey was given 75 mg of Benadryl every 8 hours for the first 48 hours and every 12 hours for three days after that. We gave him Rimadyl for pain every 12 hours for the first five days and 1000 mg of antibiotics every 12 hours for a week.
The emergency veterinarian and I discussed use of antivenin, which I thought would be necessary, but the vet only offered it as an option that “might” lead to less pain or quicker healing. If he had been bitten by a rattlesnake, been bitten in the face, or if the envenomation had hit an artery it might have been a different story.
Antivenin would require an overnight stay for observation with risk of allergic reaction and a total bill close to $1,200. Or we could take the basics and take him home and watch him closely with the major worries being a secondary infection or necrosis (dead tissue) forming or spreading around the bite area.
I called my wife and she said what I was already thinking.
“Bring my baby home.”
The bill for the visit was just over $200.
The swelling did get worse, however, a lot worse. And 24 hours later we were back at the clinic. It looked like Whiskey had a tennis ball on his elbow and we joked that he had started to grow “man boobs.”
The swelling up into the chest area and darkening of his skin was more than what I had expected, but what really moved us to take him in again was his lethargy, lack of appetite or lack of desire to drink much water.
Back at the emergency clinic, the vet on call said that incredible amount of swelling was not unusual for a copperhead bite but he confirmed Whiskey was very dehydrated. They did a blood work-up to make sure all his counts looked good and they helped him with I/V fluids and subcutaneous hydration (injecting fluid under the skin).
A couple hours and $115 later Whiskey was still puffy but his tail was wagging and his eyes were bright. The hydration was a big help. I was glad we had gone back to the clinic.
On Monday I followed up with his regular veterinarian, Dr. Seth George, at River Trail Animal Hospital in Bixby.
George said he was happy to hear of Whiskey’s progress after 60 hours and other than saying he might have gone with a steroid rather than Rimadyl and perhaps a different antibiotic, the course he was on was fine.
He recommended hydrotherapy three or four times a day and use of ACE bandages to wrap the swollen areas to help reduce the swelling.
Whiskey flinched with the first shower-setting spray of cold water from the garden hose, but he quickly settled in for a 10-minute “massage.” After the first one he happily trotted out to sit for his garden hose therapy sessions. He really, really liked it.
George acknowledged there does seem to be some debate among veterinarians about use of Benadryl for snakebite treatment but the application, like most medical questions, comes down to the severity, the type of bite and the judgment of a dog’s owner and the veterinarian at the time.
It’s clear that in some cases antivenin is really what is needed.
That debate could probably fill another column entirely, but I will continue to carry Benadryl with me in Whiskey’s first aid kit.
Whiskey was lucky
The first 48 hours for Whiskey were the toughest, but that 48-hour mark also seemed to be the turning point for maximum swelling and pain.
It was a painful 48 hours, no question. He just couldn’t get comfortable Saturday night and needed help to lie down on his side without putting pressure on that left leg.
He panted constantly and when he did sleep he whimpered. Sunday night the Benadryl had him wired so he panted and paced (limped) around the house and constantly whimpered at the door to go outside.
Once outside he would just stand there in the middle of the backyard like a three-legged zombie until, after five or 10 minutes, he would pee a little and then walk back to the door.
Nursing Whiskey back to health just meant spending a lot of time with our hands on him or sitting on the floor next to him to keep him calm. To keep him hydrated and fed we kept a bowl of low-sodium chicken broth next to his water bowl. He loved that.
On Day Three the broth graduated to broth with a couple raw eggs and some yogurt in the morning and broth with kibble in the evening. That continued through the fourth day. He started eating his normal raw food diet again on Day Five.
All is well
A week after the bite he is lying here next to my chair as I write these last few paragraphs. His leg looks normal, save a dark scabbed spot half the size of a dime where one fang hit.
He is wearing his “cone of shame” because he can’t resist licking that wound now that it’s healing and likely itching.
There are zero signs of necrosis beyond the immediate wound site and that is fantastic.
When he runs outside now he tries to zip around like usual but he will yelp and pull up briefly if he turns that foot the wrong way. But then he’s off and running again.
His bite was a serious one compared to a dry bite or one with light envenomation. Friends have shared photos of dogs with some really ugly necrosis due to copperhead bites, others have shared stories of dogs bitten and back running and hunting within a day or two, or bitten several times in the space of a week or two.
At the end of the day Whiskey was lucky to be a large dog hit on the lower leg and hit by a copperhead instead of a rattlesnake. We will be back on the trail again next weekend, I’m sure.
And we were lucky to have hunters with us to help get him out of the woods quickly and to be within an hour’s drive of good veterinary care. Big thanks to Richard Gill and to the vets at techs at Animal Emergency Center for making it all come out alright in the end.
Online Resources:
National Snakebite Support (Facebook group)
Oklahoma Snake Identification Network (Facebook group)
OKSnakes.org (Oklahoma snake identification web site) email snake ID or other questions to oksnakes@hotmail.com
Great read. Thanks for sharing. Been wondering about treatment since your first post.
Glad your pup survived that without serious secondary issues. I’ll be keeping Benadryl with me at all times in my dog kit now. Thank you .