Snakebite Symptoms

[Allerzeit]

Hi guys

We had a snake encounter last night (yay for summer ). Anya bailed up a RBB under her kennel. We environmentally relocated the snake and Anya didn't appear to have been bitten as far as we could determine.

We phoned our vet as soon as it happened, and they advised us to monitor her and they would be on standby if needed (if I know our vet they probably went into the surgery and setup everything in preparation).

Everything is fine, Anya has shown no signs of snakebite - pupils are normal and reactive, no weakness, no blood in the urine.

It occured to me this morning, when asked by oonga, that I didn't know how long the window of danger is - as in, over what timeframe would you reasonably expect the dog to show signs of envenomation?

The incident happened at about 6pm last night. I'm still watching Anya very closely, and will do for the next few days (as in watching her pee, checking her pupils, etc).

Going to be a long, hot, snake heavy summer guys - hold on to your hats!

[Scales of Justice]

The severity of symptoms will relate to how much venom has been injected. A dog can show symptoms as soon as half an hour to an hour or it can take much longer.

Symptoms vary according to the types of snakes which bit too. Brown snake symptoms are depression, neural symptoms (staggering, dizziness,) breathing difficulty and paralysis. Black snake symptoms usually are related to internal bleeding - very red gums, bleeding into the tissues and organs etc. General debilitation. One of the tests done to determine black snake bite is centrifuging of the blood to determine whether there are any changes in the blood chemistry.

Edited November 21, 2007 by Scales of Justice

[krash01]

oh no!!! my parent's dog, Daisy, who was bitten on sunday, fell ill within a matter of hours.

So it sounds like Anya is ok, but i guess you can't be 100% sure..

I hope she wasn't bitten!! Fingers crossed she's ok....

[Rappie]

It can vary quite significantly. Continue monitoring closely are you are - reasonably I would expect a window of about 48 hours but I would also point out that I have seen dogs bitten by tiger snakes and RBB present up to a week after they were bitten, with reasonably vague clinical signs of lethargy and inappetance.

[Allerzeit]

Thanks for that feedback Rappie, I was hoping you would comment

I'm still watching Anya like a hawk, fortunately she's a very full on dog so any change in personality is going to stick out like the proverbial. Colour is good, pee is clean, eyes are normal, and she is still leaping around like an idiot and eating like a pig.

I will keep watching her extra closely for a while yet - I wasn't surprised about the 48 hours, but I was stunned with the delay of up to a week Good information to have, thanks!

[Rappie]

It may not neccessarily be a delay of a week, but they can certainly display mild signs for that long. In all the cases, there was a vague history of not wanting to move much, not wanting to eat much and they present clinically looking a lot like tick paralysis. It was only by delving deeper into the history that we discovered the contact with a snake, and determined that the symptoms had probably been present since the time of contact but were very mild. They were treated with antivenom because although the progression was slow, they were not improving, however all recovered well after the antivenom was administered.

One thing I would recommend though, if you're a dog, is not getting bitten by a death adder. Apart from a sea snake, death adders are about the only snake not covered by the Tiger-Brown antivenom. I have seen two death adder bites (two dogs, same snake) and one survived - only by virtue of being the second dog bitten and the fact that we (through a pot luck donation from the local hospital) had a single vial of death adder specific antivenom in the clinic.

[Janba]

I have had a dog bitten by a RBB and showed only mild symptons of being off colour and not wanting to eat much (a bad sign in a dally). The emergency vet I took her on a weekend decided she had a tooth infection and sent me home with anti biotics and instructions to take her to my normal vet to have her teeth cleaned.

My vet did a blood test and determined it was a RBB snake bite, but by then she was on the mend and didn't need antivenime (sp?). She had had a small wound on her lip and the vet thought she just caught one fang and didn't get much venom injected.

Edited November 22, 2007 by Janba

[Allerzeit]

Rappie, you've just made me very thankful that we don't have Death Adders! We have plenty of RBB and Eastern Browns, and a few Tigers.

I'm finding this all very interesting. We did lose Kansas last year to what I believe was snake bite. I believe snake bite because after she had died we found the dead, and clearly dog bitten, RBB snake under her kennel.

Kansas was off colour for a day or two, and then I saw her urinating and there was clearly blood in the urine. Straight into the vet, and the vet decided it was a kidney infection or a UTI. I asked about snake bite and was assured that it couldn't be snake bite, as she would already have died.

Kansas seemed to improve with the antibiotics, so I accepted the UTI diagnosis, but then a couple of days later she crashed and died very quickly.

It's interesting to hear of others experiences with delayed reaction. I only wish I had insisted the vet do a blood test to check for snake bite :rolleyes:

[raz]

When mine were bitten by the RBB, behaviour was very erratic - hypo one minute, almost comatose the next, loss of bowel control within about 6 hours, kidney failure within 48.

If snake bite is a possibility but the vet maintains you should just be keeping an eye on her (fingers crossed it was just a dry bite if she was bitten) I'd be keeping her as calm as possible while you're monitoring her, Allerzeit. Crate her if necessary.