My Dogs Have Killed A Snake And Eaten The Head

[persephone]

Hope all is well this morning !

[Kelly_Louise]

$2k - $3k for antivenom? Are you kidding?

Thank goodness we don't seem to have snakes around us...

[Guest Willow]

Far out!!!! $300 for a consult!!????!!!!! That is one super expensive vet!!! I hope your dogs are ok....sounds like they will be. Fingers crossed.

Pretty standard for Perth after hours emergency :D

Once the big hand goes past 9 o'clock....that's it........get the house re-mortgaged!!!!

[♪♫LMBC♫♪]

$2k - $3k for antivenom? Are you kidding?

Thank goodness we don't seem to have snakes around us...

My sisters dog was bitten by a brown snake, all up the bill was over $8000, including after hours consults, 5 night stay at the surgery, tests, and anti-venom. Its not cheap :D lucky, the dog survived and is now perfectly healthy.

[Kelly_Louise]

OMG - I never realised (thank goodness from not having to go through the experience) that a snake bite and treatment/antivenom could cost SO much!

Both of Chloe's orthapedic cruciate operations came to less than your sisters dogs treatment for snake bite

[SilverHaze]

I had a dog who i found playing catch with a tiger snake. The snake got away when i distracted her, and i rushed her to our great vet down the road, where we checked her head to toe, but couldn't find anything. Decided to play the watch and wait game instead of treating with antivenine. Anyways, post the 72 hour mark, all was fine, so we were relieved.

A while later we find a big scab on the top of her head, peeled the scab away to find two tiny little pinpricks! Looks like the snake just grazed her. The wound would not heal till we ended up treating it with some powerful burns cream.

That bitch was damn lucky!

Edited February 3, 2010 by SilverHaze

[griff]

I do hope that the dogs are OK.

such a worry for you.

[Lab_Rat]

We're back from the emergency vet. The dogs are okay so far. I have to check they can walk okay and are normal every hour she said throughout the night. Apparently symptoms can take up to 24 hours to show. My past experience has been that the dogs react within a fairly short time if they've been bitten but appently it depends on where they were biten etc.

I think I'm going to take out pet insurance for sure. The emergency vet fees are so high. It was $300 just for the consult and tests costs a further $400. Then if your dog needs anitvenom you're looking at $2-3,000.

Thanks for your help everyone.

:D Bloody Hell Chocolate! Other than the out of hours consult, those fees are ridiculously high!!

I live in SW WA, and when my girl was bitten December 2008 I raced her in - at the time not knowing what the symptoms were actually caused by. I was in such a panic over her strange symptoms that I only figured it out on the hour long trip to my vet.

The Consult was $60

Meds she had were Adrenaline $25

3500iu of Brown/Tiger Snake anti-venom $730

Histamil (whtever that was?) $14

The Blood Tests (anti clotting test to determine a positive for the snake bite) $25

IV Fluids $130

All up it was a little over $1000. This seemed very reasonable to me, even after the vet said "It could be quite expensive, probably around a K!" Is that all, I thought. That is NOT 'quite expensive' in my eyes!!

I guess depending on how much anti-venom is needed is going to influence the price, but those numbers just seem so off the chart!!

What on earth were the tests???

My girl made a full recovery, the vet and all the nurses were excellent, like they are ALL the time and I couldnt have asked for better care.

Anyway Im glad your kids are ok! And that you didnt have to fork out for anti-venom!

One thing I have found out recently about venomous snakes - adult ones anyway, they decide when to envenomate, and how much! Babies arent born (hatched) with the ability to do that, so they just get cranky and bite!!

Seems to be quite a Snakey Summer!!

Rat

[W Sibs]

I hope your dog is ok, Chocolate.

$300 is pretty standard in Sydney with after hour Emergency Vet Hospital too.

[OSoSwift]

We're back from the emergency vet. The dogs are okay so far. I have to check they can walk okay and are normal every hour she said throughout the night. Apparently symptoms can take up to 24 hours to show. My past experience has been that the dogs react within a fairly short time if they've been bitten but appently it depends on where they were biten etc.

I think I'm going to take out pet insurance for sure. The emergency vet fees are so high. It was $300 just for the consult and tests costs a further $400. Then if your dog needs anitvenom you're looking at $2-3,000.

Thanks for your help everyone.

Bloody Hell Chocolate! Other than the out of hours consult, those fees are ridiculously high!!

I live in SW WA, and when my girl was bitten December 2008 I raced her in - at the time not knowing what the symptoms were actually caused by. I was in such a panic over her strange symptoms that I only figured it out on the hour long trip to my vet.

The Consult was $60

Meds she had were Adrenaline $25

3500iu of Brown/Tiger Snake anti-venom $730

Histamil (whtever that was?) $14

The Blood Tests (anti clotting test to determine a positive for the snake bite) $25

IV Fluids $130

All up it was a little over $1000. This seemed very reasonable to me, even after the vet said "It could be quite expensive, probably around a K!" Is that all, I thought. That is NOT 'quite expensive' in my eyes!!

I guess depending on how much anti-venom is needed is going to influence the price, but those numbers just seem so off the chart!!

What on earth were the tests???

My girl made a full recovery, the vet and all the nurses were excellent, like they are ALL the time and I couldnt have asked for better care.

Anyway Im glad your kids are ok! And that you didnt have to fork out for anti-venom!

One thing I have found out recently about venomous snakes - adult ones anyway, they decide when to envenomate, and how much! Babies arent born (hatched) with the ability to do that, so they just get cranky and bite!!

Seems to be quite a Snakey Summer!!

Rat

That is very reasonable. A non complicated (if there is such a thing!) Snake bite here would be $2000.

The Histamil is an antihistamine which helps to reduce the likely hood of an antivenom reaction.

Ours also get Vit C and Vit B I think, and would be more for fluids and we would have hospitalisation costs.

[Chocolate]

Thanks everyone for your concern. The dogs are okay this morning and I'm so thankful it doesn't seem as though they were bitten. The danger of my dogs playing with a snake doesn't bare thinking about I could have walked out to find dead dogs and not a dead snake, I would have been heartbroken this morning and in dispare so I'm so thankful. I lost a pup to a snake a few years ago, found her dead and there was nothing I could do, it tore me apart.

Lab Rat the Emergency Vet is Murdoch University, nothing else is open in the evening in Perth and the tests they were a blood clot and urine test from a snake testing kit, very expensive I agree. Your country vet was GREAT pulling your dog through for minimal mark up Murdoch is quite different in that respect. I'm certainly going to be investigating pet insurance now.

[oakeydoak1]

I have a bitch that got bitten twice within 12 months - cost me $1200 each time which has to be paid upfront BEFORE they will administer the anti-venom!!!

[cvs]

chocolate glad the dogs are ok and hopefully they will leave the snakes alone now.

We have an emergency place in Canberra that wont even look at the dog without the money up front... plus once they have the dog they wont let the owners go in to calm them down.

A bitch was having complications during whelping and it was taken in for an emergency cesar... they would not look at the dog until the bill was paid and then as the bitch was in distress they would not let anyone calm her down as the money was not paid.... i think all up it cost of 2K and the end result was that the puppies did not make it... they are really not in it for the animals... and having a monopoly on the after hours care there really is no other options...

[Rysup]

Thank heavens they are ok!

And thank heavens my vet is happy to give me their after hours number for emergencies. The Emergency Vets charge like wounded bulls and it offends me highly that they wont do anything without payment up front. To let a dog or litter die.....thats horrendous.

[laeral]

OMG - I never realised (thank goodness from not having to go through the experience) that a snake bite and treatment/antivenom could cost SO much!

Both of Chloe's orthapedic cruciate operations came to less than your sisters dogs treatment for snake bite

For a non complicated snake bite treatment it cost me $1250. Thats just one vial of antivenom and home the next day.

I have a bitch that got bitten twice within 12 months - cost me $1200 each time which has to be paid upfront BEFORE they will administer the anti-venom!!!

My vet did let me know about cost but while she was setting up the drip etc. They would NEVER delay treatment to get payment up front.

But maybe that vet has had trouble in the past with people paying

[♪♫LMBC♫♪]

$2k - $3k for antivenom? Are you kidding?

Thank goodness we don't seem to have snakes around us...

My sisters dog was bitten by a brown snake, all up the bill was over $8000, including after hours consults, 5 night stay at the surgery, tests, and anti-venom. Its not cheap lucky, the dog survived and is now perfectly healthy.

I should say though, that it was pretty bad to need so much treatment. My sister came home from work to find the dog unconscious, no sign of a snake anywhere so they would have done tests to confirm it was a brown snake. It was touch and go for the first few nights and the dog was very lucky. I imagine it would have been cheaper if it hadn't been so bad.

[dunnwarren]

chocolate glad the dogs are ok and hopefully they will leave the snakes alone now.

We have an emergency place in Canberra that wont even look at the dog without the money up front... plus once they have the dog they wont let the owners go in to calm them down.

A bitch was having complications during whelping and it was taken in for an emergency cesar... they would not look at the dog until the bill was paid and then as the bitch was in distress they would not let anyone calm her down as the money was not paid.... i think all up it cost of 2K and the end result was that the puppies did not make it... they are really not in it for the animals... and having a monopoly on the after hours care there really is no other options...

I cannot believe what I'm reading. I had to take our silky girl in for a ceasar 4am on a Monday morning, I went in with her to help plus the vet nurse. All up it cost me $970, got 4 live pups and the bill came 3 weeks later. I paid a few installments then the remainder when I sold the pups, that was fine with the vet practice.

[Staff'n'Toller]

I have a bitch that got bitten twice within 12 months - cost me $1200 each time which has to be paid upfront BEFORE they will administer the anti-venom!!!

I know regular day clinics here in Melbourne that require the same. The shock of the snake bite tends to make owners blurt out "yes do whatever you need to" and then they come to get their dog after 2 vials of anti-venom and it's "oh btw I have no spare money".

It's unfortunate but the dishonest people who give false addresses and don't pay their bills have made it this way.

[Kimjm1]

Having worked in many clinics it is not a nice situation to have to ask anyone to have to pay upfront, but unfortunatly not everyone is as honest as you may think and if bills don't get paid vets can not operate a clinic. You would be horrified by the amount of people that promise and swear on their life the bill will be paid and it never is.

[Pete.the.dog]

I have a bitch that got bitten twice within 12 months - cost me $1200 each time which has to be paid upfront BEFORE they will administer the anti-venom!!!

Omg that is horrible. My dog would die.

1. Because I don't have $1200 in my bank most of the time

2. Because my daily transaction limit is $800 so even if it was in there I wouldn't have immediate access.

Thats really frightening