Glad Silly is okay! I sometimes wonder if my Great Pyrenese has encountered such snakes and learned about them.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Littledog,

I'm glad Silly is OK. We have the same snake problems here. In ten years, I haven't lost a dog to snakebite (almost lost Duke, our Rottweiler, two years ago) but have lost several cats. And, at the place next door, two people have been bitten by copperheads in the last dozen years.

An acquaintance of mine took her high-dollar cattle dogs to an "anti-snake" class at a college west of Fort Worth about a decade ago. They put those shock collars on the dogs and expose them to snakes (ones that have had their fangs removed). They teach the dogs via the shock collar to avoid the snakes. It was a pretty pricey class, but she felt like it was an effective one.

We haven't had much of a snake problem this year, but neighbors just a couple of miles north of us have had a huge problem, including having poisonous snakes take up residence in their garage this summer.

And, I have a cat named Emmitt Smith who's about 10 or 12 years old. He HATES snakes. Every time he comes across a water hose lying in the grass, he'll jump and run.....I think that he thinks that hose is a really long snake.

George,

Some dogs kill snakes. I would think your Great Pyrenese might be a breed that does that????? Our neighbor (where the people keep getting bitten by Copperheads) had a really small terrier (kind of like a rat terrier, but somewhat larger) named Rascal. Rascal hated snakes. If he saw a copperhead, he'd run at it, grab it by the neck, shake it hard enough to kill it, then skin it and eat it. He kept the snakes down to a manageable level. Rascal lived to be 16 or 18 years old before a coyote got him.

Dawn

I don't know if a Pyrenese will kill snakes or not. Will have to ask someone with more experience. One of my local friends, here, had a cattle dog which got bitten by a rattle snake. He told me that the dog crawled off into the woods and, he thought the dog had died. But a couple days later he came back and seemed fine. However, the very next time the dog found a snake (also a rattler) he pounced on it and shook it so hard that it came apart. My friend said he had to pick pieces of snakes off his garage roof! That dog responded to snakes the same way to the end of his days (died of old age).

Guardian did alert me to an armadillo a couple weeks ago. It had gotten the eggs from under one of our turkey hens. Apparently Guardi followed the armadillo around, barking at it, for several hours, before I staggered out (2:30 AM) four about the 3rd time, and discovered what it was that he was barking at. Every time I had gone out Guardi would stop chasing it and come over to "say hello." It never occurred to him to kill it, which, I guess was because the turkey herself got off the nest and was okay. Hopefully he'll learn to kill those vermin! He weighs over 100 pounds and is still a puppy.

BTW, this summer, I never saw Guardian react to a snake, and we had a lot of problems with them and the poultry. However, I don't know that he actually met up with one. The snakes were all in our outbuildings, where he could not go.

George

George,

None of my dogs kill armadillos either. They just follow them around, barking wildly....so close to the dillo that the dog's nose is pretty much touching the dillo's tail. Maybe armadilloes taste bad?

How much do you think Guardian will weigh when he's full-grown? Duke, who is only part-Rottweiler, is three years old and weighs about 120. I THINK he has gotten as big as he is going to. He's all muscle, very little fat, and looks scarey, but he's just a big pussy cat.

Dawn

I'm suspecting that Guardi will not get much larger. He may fill out a bit. His mother is large for a Pyrenese and his sire is on the small end of the spectrum. I hear that, from his litter, the pups have been all over the range for normal Pyrenese, from small to large. He's large enough for me! I didn't realize how large he was, in fact, until one day he got out of the pasture and I found him sitting by the side of the road. I decided to put him in the back of the pickup and drive him about 200 feet, back to the driveway. Well, ... forget it! I couldn't begin to pick him up!

And, back to the subject of snakes for a minute.

Snakebite is a common occurrence here, particularly for dogs, but also for cats and the occasional human.

The first time one of our cats got snakebit, we called the next-door neighbor for advice and he told us his mama always gave a snakebit animal a raw egg with bacon grease in it and it seemed to help them recover. I suspect the bacon grease is just to make the raw egg more palatable. For whatever reason, this does seem to help. Perhaps it is because a snakebit animal doesn't have an appetite for a few days and the egg is just a good source of protein and vitamins. Most snakebit animals we've had will eat the raw egg and bacon grease, or at least a little of it, although not with gusto. On the other hand, they won't eat anything else, so at least the egg is something.

When Duke was bit, we were about 300' from the house and I had a hard time getting him back to the house. He was going into shock and was glassy-eyed and lethargic. DH and DS were on a fire call. I called DH and he got home as fast as he could after they got back from the fire call and he found me in the yard literally holding Duke upright.

Duke's bite was on the bridge of his nose and he had a lot of swelling. We were afraid the swelling would hamper his breathing OR blood flow, so DH broke open a couple of Benadryl capsules, mixed them with water and used an eye dropper to get the Benadryl into Duke's mouth. Within MINUTES the swelling started going down, the glassy-eyed stare went away and he regained the ability to hold himself upright and to walk. He did have some swelling for a few days and didn't eat very much, but he recovered. To this day he remembers the EXACT spot in the driveway where he was bitten and goes out of his way to avoid that area.

Nowadays, we always have liquid Benadryl and a syringe handy so we can squirt the medication into the mouth of a dog if bitten. We've never tried it on cats, but then the cats usually die so fast you can't save them....perhaps because they are smaller animals. I do have one cat who has survived 2 snakebites although the vet thought the second one would kill her. And of all the pets bitten by snakes here, only one, a black cat named Slim Shady, actually developed the telltale copper-colored rash you sometimes have after being bitten by a copperhead.

Around here, a lot of cattle dogs get bitten by rattlesnakes or copperheads and, often, the venom doesn't kill them, but the resulting rapid swelling of a limb can cut off the blood circulation--hence the use of Benadryl.

It is cooling down quite a lot, so maybe snake season will end soon. I have seen rat snakes out as late as early December, but we usually don't see many copperheads or rattlesnakes out and about after late October.

I think I'd rather deal with my humungo spiders.... :)

Lisa

Lisa,

Well, I was just a city girl chicken-scaredy cat when I moved here. Now I'm a country girl chicken-scaredy cat. So, nothing's really changed, except I have more critters to scare me here than we had in Fort Worth.I really don't like spider or snakes at all. Other critters I've encountered since moving here that have scared me pretty good: scorpions (when they sting, it hurts!), skunks, raccoons (VERY mean and aggressive), bobcats, coyotes, panthers, cougars, and feral pigs. And, I DID expect a lot of wildlife. It's just that we have about 10,000 times more wildlife than I expected.

I really HATED and tried to avoid all insects before we moved here, but I had to get over that because there were so many other more threatening creatures here.

On the other hand, there's tons of other creatures that are enjoyable to have around, including frogs (well, the tree frog that sounds like a lady screaming still kinda sends a chill up my spine), lizards, horny toads, dragonflies, bats, all kinds of birds including eagles, rabbits, turtles, foxes, possums (they're so ugly they're cute), ferrets, ring-tailed cats, squirrels (the babies are adorable), fish, bees, hornets, wasps, moths, butteflies, etc.

Even though I see snakes (non-venomous and venomous) a lot, I don't think I'll ever get used to having them around. The only snake that doesn't make me turn and head the other way is the light green tree snakes. I like them.

Dawn

It's very good to have Benadryl on hand. I never thought of it in relation to snake bites. But then, no one in our family has ever been bitten. I got pricked in the thumb, this summer, by a small copperhead. But he didn't release any poison.

Once, back in the 90s, when we were living in Hidalgo, Mexico we had an emergency on the grounds of the Bible Institute, where I taught. We had an ag program, and part of it had bees. Our bees had become contaminated with African bees. One day someone came running into my office to inform me that there were bees buzzing all over campus, stinging students. Well, I had to suit up and go see what was going on. Turns out that a number of hives had ganged upon one other and were trying to rob its honey. This caused a "Bee war." Since these were mainly African, they took out their anger on EVERYONE and everything within a couple hundred feet!

I knew what to do, to shut things down. But it involved some manipulation of the hives (getting right up on them and handling them). Since my teens I've worked bees. Always, when stung, I had more swelling than most. I had never been stung more than 5 times in a week.

Well, I , HAD TO get those bees under control A.S.A.P. in order to avoid a catastrophe. Within 15 minutes I'd been stung about 80 times. Those African bees always found the tiniest opening in my overalls. Still, I HAD . to finish the job. So I retreated to the school dispensary and found a bottle of Benadryl. I took two swigs and went out to finish, which I did.

Not only didn't I swell up or have an allergic reaction. I could get stung after that incident, and the sting neither hurt very much nor swelled at all. This continued for a couple years until, finally, I guess I hadn't been stung enough to maintain that resistance. (This year I haven't been stung even once by my bees).

So I guess Benadryl is good ... for what ails you!

George

Where are y'all finding liquid Benadryl? I have used it often in the past on both humans and animals, but since the spring, I can't find a bottle anywhere. ;^(

I haven't looked lately. Will have to check Walmart.

George

Littledog,

You might want to try a full-line pharmacy like CVS or Wal-Greens or whatever you have similar to those in your town.

The CVS in Texas closest to us still carries the liquid Benadryl that you and I have used often in the past for animals AND people, but the big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target that I go to haven't had it in months--perhaps not at all in 2008. In its' place, they have two children's-oriented liquid products. One is a combination Benadryl-decongestant product for kids and the other is still just liquid Benadryl, but it is a box that has 8 or 10 little plastic spoons "pre-loaded" with a child's dose of liquid Benadryl, and it is either cherry or grape flavored. I suppose those spoons could be siphoned up in to an eyedropper or syringe to use with a dog, if necessary.

I hope you can find some--it is a very handy product for those of us who (unfortunately) have lots of contact with snakes, bees, etc.

George,

OUCH! I cannot even imagine what that many bee stings must have felt like. I am so glad the Benadryl helped in that case, and I feel like the Good Lord was watching over you as well.

Two summers ago, we lost a resident from the western end of the county when numerous bee stings sent him into anaphylactic shock. Even with first responders quickly on the scene performing CPR, he could not be revived, and I believe he was a young, healthy man in his 30s. It was just so sad for his family to lose him to bee stings. Some people don't realize how allergic they are until it is too late.

Dawn

Ahh, Benadryl is a must have. My husband has a terrible reaction to stings, but I don't. I don't mean they don't hurt, but they don't make me sick like he gets. But on the other hand, I am allergic to too many things to count. I have to find the Benadryl tablets that are NOT pink because I am allergic to Red 40 dye.

Couple of weeks ago I went for a hair cut and they sprayed a product on my hair that they called "shine". It was a type of silkening mist, like a conditioner you leave on. Before I got home my ear was swollen, at home I found bumps behind my ear, by night both ears were itching and swollen. I took some Benadryl and went to bed. I got up and 5 AM and went to OKC. By the time I got home that night, everywhere my hair touched my head and neck was covered in red rash and itching bad. FINALLY, I realized what was causing it, and got it out of my hair. My arm also broke out where I had my arm over my head while I was sleeping. The doctor was very surprised that it was only on my head and a little on my hand and arms where I had touched it. I got a topical med, and oral med, and a shot in the rear. By the next day, all of both arms was itching, but the rash didn't come to the skin surface quite so bad, but that didn't stop the itching. The itching lasted two weeks and one ear stayed swollen the whole time. The product he gave me instead of benadryl was called Xyzal, but I don't think it was any better than plain old Benadryl. Benadryl is a staple in our home.

What kind of snake is it? And how big was it? I know it's not a copperhead and it doesn't look like a timber rattler which is the only kind I've seen here. I can't tell if it has rattles, but the head doesn't look quite right for a rattler. Though the body is sure good size for the length, which is a characteristic of poisonous snakes, but also of some non-poisonous water snakes. I've misplaced my reptile ID book, so can't look it up. I learned last week that copperheads are very pale, not coppery at all just after they molt. DH found one right next to where it had come out of its skin and the coloring was more tan than coppery-brown. Dorothy

Carol,

What a horror story. I never realized a hair care product could cause such a reaction! Benadryl is a staple in our home too...between numerous allergies and tons of insects and reptiles, I just feel safer when I have it around. I have it in every bathroom, the kitchen, my purse, and in the vehicles. (Well, you NEVER know when you'll need it.)

I am allergic to smoke, so I need to take it before I go to fires, too. (Isn't that pitiful!)

Dorothy,

I didn't really recognize the snake in Littledog's photo either, but I know from experience that some snakes have a wide variation in color and even patterns. I see a LOT of variation in copperheads here, for example. I don't think I've ever seen a timber rattler that looked quite like the one I had recently, but it was a timber rattler...it just had a lot more of a yellowish-nish to its background color than the ones I usually see.

I've seen both massasauga rattlesnakes and pygmy rattlesnakes that exhibit a pattern similar to the one on the snake in Littledog's photo, but I don't know enough about snakes to say if her snake was either one of those. If you look at the attached pygmy link, for example, there's 10 pages of photos of pymy rattlesnakes, and quite a lot of variation in the markings.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Pygmy

I found the snake book and the illustration of pygmy rattler looks almost exactly like littledog's photo. It also shows that they occur here, but I've never seen one. Hope I never do even if they are so little-18-24" the book says. Dorothy

Dorothy,

My snake year has suddenly ramped up and I am seeing a lot of them. It IS the time of year when they are searching for a place to overwinter, but they are getting on my nerves. DH always says "don't worry about the ones you see....you have to worry about the ones you don't see!"

At least now you and I have a better idea of the various "looks" of pygmy rattlers! My cats and dogs have encountered a lot or snakes lately, too--you can tell because they still go outside but stick very, very close to the porches and patios. I know it is snakes, because when they have encountered something scarey like a coyote or bobcat or panther, they refuse to go outside at all! When snakes have scared them, they go outside but stay on the porch, patio, or on top of the cars! LOL

The sudden rash of snake encounters is making me long for that first hard freeze, although from a gardening standpoint I am not really wanting a freeze.

Dawn