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Very interesting stuff.

Must have missed this in the past.

We have no venomous snakes here, but did have rattlesnakes west of Spokane Washington where I lived for a time in the early '90's.

We had a Labrador Retriever that was bitten. Trouble was, the dog was roaming about when the strike occured, and didn't get home till he was literally dragging the bitten leg. The leg had swollen up to about the size of my leg and it appeared to be "dead" with no response to stimulus {he couldn't move it} except for pain.

We of course at that time then rushed him to the vet.

The vet examined the dog, verified rattlesnake bite and stated that the anti-venin was useless as the strike was at least 4 hours old {our combined estimate}. His prescription was a high dose of antibiotics. The reason he said, was, that in this case, with antivenin of no assistance, the venom would work its course and the dog either die or survive its direct affect. However, the next problem would be the injury to the tissues by the venom, and the possibility of infection/gangrene later. Thus, Buster got a buttfull of penecillin or some such {I don't recall the exact antibiotic} and he was sent home.

Vet said in a week or so he'll either be dead or he'll start to improve. Saving the leg was another issue.

Well, he did survive. He laid around for a day or so then rose from the grave so-to-speak and dragged the useless club around for another few days and then little-by-little put weight on it and the swelling went down, and in about 2 to 3 weeks was himself again, which is to say, a loveable knothead of a lug with an incredible and brainless hattred of snakes of all sorts. He dug them out and brought them home to chew on. Never got another rattler, but died about a year later of some sort of brain aneurism after being struck by three vehicles and a horse trailer over the course of that year.

I don't know if it matters, but the snakes we had there were small; 2 to 3 feet long at the longest, and a little bigger than my thumb in thickness. We had a jar of rattles in alcohol sitting around, from the one's I shot among the rocks behind the house, but the movers pinched them when we came over here.

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