A dog in our dog group was recently bit by a rattle snake. Their vet didn't stock anti venom and there wasn't any avaiable within an hour's drive. The emergency clinic had some, but they don't open until 6 pm and they close at 8 am.

This dog needed the venom and didn't get it for about a day. The owner's vet was hesitant to give it anyway, but the dog's head continued to swell after a day and eventually went to the emergency clinic.

So this makes me wonder why anti venom is not stocked in my area where rattle snakes certainly exist and why is it so expensive? The dog needed two doses of it at 1000. a pop! Also, about how much time does a dog have to get medical attention for a rattle snake bite?

It is so expensive because it is a complicated process to make it. Rattlesnakes are raised on a "snake farm" and have to be hand milked (fun job, huh? Sign me up!). The venom is then introduced into sheep at an US FDA approved farm in Australia (I believe because they do not have scrapie in sheep there) and anti-venom is extracted from these sheep. None of this is cheap. Also, the drug is not widely used (say like cholesterol medication or Viagra ;) )so the drug company needs to charge a lot. Because it is so expensive, in general it is kept at specified medical centers that dole it out as needed to animals and people at facilities in their region. Maybe more info than you wanted to know.

For about a week it seemed as if everytime we turned around the dogs were getting bitten by these dreaded rattle
snakes. In the beginning we hauled them to the vet. He is an old country vet with lots of snake bites under his belt. The night the first got bitten he said to give Benadryl and bring them in the am. So off we went with 2 dogs with bites. Came home with antibiotic and more Benadryl. He said there is nothing more to do, the antivenom is not necessary. All went fine and the swelling was gone in a day. One girl had a black spot on her rear foot, almost all the hair has grown back. Then two day later it happened again, once to a dog not bitten before and again to one that had. She had the worst reation, leg, chest and ear swelled up. He gave us DMSO for her ear which had a large hematoma and I was sure it would end up deformed. After 3 days of rubbing on the DMSO it was comeplety healed, no swelling or scar tissue, She has no outward signs of being bitten again but it took her a little while to recover. The DMSO made her lose her appetite and she moped around for a few days. The other dog had no treatment at all. To summerize, nothing but Benadryl needs to be given and the antibiotics were a waste of time and money, they never showed any secondary infections and the last two dogs were not given any. All are recovered. We don't know where they were getting the snakes and I never saw any in the yard that the dogs didn't find. Animals don't react to things like humans and all in all it was not a big thing. I would have perhaps been more worried if they had been bitten closer to the heart, but the snakes are gone and the dogs are well and I am glad that the counrty vet is so reasonable. All the visits with meds were under $100. He says the antivenom is dangerous, very expensive and can only been give once, best just to treat the sympyoms.

That's amazing. I thought once bitten it was a death sentence unless treated with antivenom. I know dogs have been lost here in FL due to snake bites. Does Benadryl and DMSO work for other snake bites too? Like a coral snake?

Please, what is DMSO?

DMSO = dimethyl sulfoxide. It is a solvent that some think has an anti-inflammatory effect.

Check out this link on snake bite vaccine. Cheaper than antivenin in snake infested areas:http://rattlesnakevaccinefordogs.com/faqs.html.

I'd like to know what DMSO is as well.

Did you all read that article in the latest LQ about a breeder's yellow girl getting bit by a Rattlesnake in Southern California ? Southern California has Southern Pacifics which are nasty venom snakes. Her dog almost died and she ended up spending thousands of dollars getting her dog on the road to recovery.

has anyone given the rattle snake vaccine? my mother gives it to her Boston because he is out running in the fields and they live in TX

May I ask where you live to have such a snake population?

I think a lot depends on what kind of snake, how large it is, how small the dog is or how old or healthy it is. Some snakes are much more deadly, don't know about Coral Snakes but they may have more potent venom. Snakes don't always inject a whole dose, sometimes they just mean to warn. I think that with our dogs the worst bites were the dogs that got bitten first. They are not very bright ( the dogs) as they stood around one snake we happened to witness and just barked at it as it attempted to strike them. My husband was out the door with a hoe asap but by then two already had bites. We found one dead snake on the porch that was only about a foot long so its bite would probably cause much less of a reaction/ We live in North East Oklahoma. DMSO is a solvent that was invented for cleaning and is over 100 years old. It crosses cellular membranes very easily and takes what is in tissue like blood in the hematoma away. It has been used in some form to put drugs in topical solutions into the skin, however not used much anymore. In the raw form it is a clear gel that is smeared on the skin, you have to use gloves or you will have the taste reaction too. The bad thing about it is that it makes you instantly have a terrible taste in your mouth, much like heavy garlic. With the dog we used it on, her ear smelled and her breath was horrible, I am sure that is why she didn't feel like eating. I am just glad all worked out and no one had obvious lasting harm. We have 70 acres but only 3 fenced for the house and dogs. I have no idea why this year we had such a hard time. In the 14 years I have lived out here I have only seen one snake in the yard and it was many years ago.

I've seen an unusual amount of snakes this year in my yard. Thankfully, most here in Florida are harmless. I have seen a coral and pygmy rattler, but most are black snakes or garter snakes. It doesn't matter the snake, if it moves it's fair game for my dogs. I walked out my back door and saw a black snake sunning itself in my driveway. The dogs were behind me and ran right over to it. If that was a coral snake I hate to think about it, at least it's a timid snake and tries to hide. The aggressive snakes live near the water, I'm quite a distance from any lake or pond.