Snake bites occur fairly commonly due to this region of Texas being home to several poisonous snakes including rattlesnakes, water moccasins, copperheads, and coral snakes. Envenomating coral snake bites are actually rare since these snakes must repeatedly chew on their prey to inject venom. Rattlesnake bites are the most poisonous, followed by water moccasins, and then copperheads.

All pets who have been bitten by a snake should be seen immediately by a veterinarian due to the potential for life threatening complications. Recent studies have shown that first aid care in the field, such as tourniquets, blood letting and other common practices actually worsen the bite and are not recommended, and so therefore, the best thing to do if your pet has been bitten by a snake, is to transport him or her to the nearest veterinary facility immediately.

Common complications from snake bites range from severe pain, swelling at the site of the bite, and infection to more serious problems including low blood pressure, difficulty breathing, clotting abnormalities, or widespread inflammation called DIC. All of these serious complications can result in death of the pet, sometimes within minutes to hours up to two days after the incident.

Not all snake bites are envenomating. Factors that affect the severity of the bite include the volume of venom injected, the age and size of the snake, the aggressiveness of the snake, and type of snake. Complications can occur up to 36 hours after the initial bite, so all pets should be evaluated initially and ideally hospitalized and monitored for any changes necessitating treatment. Pets should be started minimally on pain medications and antibiotics. Steroids, Benadryl, and NSAID’s have not been shown to be beneficial. Use of antivenin in veterinary medicine is controversial since the type of snake is not always known, and one type of antivenin does not work for all snake bites. Antivenin can also cause serum sickness up to 30 days after administration that results in multi organ failure.

Christine New, DVM