We had a wee bit of an incident this Sunday. Well, the Husbear’s doggy, Luna, did.

The Husbear was working out in the yard, and I was working on the barn, when we heard Luna start barking at something. We keep her on a runner when we are out in the yard, and she was in the bushes barking at something. It wasn’t the normal bark, but one that made both the Husbear and I know something was up and we ran over to check on her.

We pulled her out, and she was favoring her front left paw, and was shaking a little. Then she just flopped over and started panting.

We knew something was up. We tried to get her up to walk into the house, but she wouldn’t. I picked her 50# self up and carried her into the house. Robert called our vet, but since it was a Sunday, the answering service told us to go to an emergency vet located about 25 minutes south of us. Ugh.

We never saw it, but we both know the signs of a copperhead snake bite. We couldn’t see bite marks on the paw she was favoring, but it was starting to swell. And she was lethargic. She didn’t even move when milli (one of the kittehs) walked right up to her and sniffed her nose.

So the Husbear and I get Luna in the car, and he’s sitting with her in the back, while I’m driving like a madman. Apparently no ones knows what emergency flashers mean on a car anymore, because there were several times people wouldn’t even get out of the fast lane so we could go around. *grumble*

We finally get the emergency vet, and they get her in right away. By now, her paw and lower leg have swollen to about twice their normal size. She’s just occasionally whimpering, but we could tell she was in pain.

The emergency vet started her on an IV flush to help work things out of her system, and started her on morphine as well for the pain. They said they could administer an antivenin, but it typically wasn’t necessary unless she had been bitten in the face, and it was very costly. They did wanted to keep her overnight to continue the IV flush and antibiotic treatments and monitor her health. So we left her there.

We called several times that night to check on her. The swelling was continuing up her leg, but they felt that she was at least stable. They noted some necrosis had started around the bite (which they found between her toes), and were continuing to clean the area as they could.

The Husbear picked her up early Monday morning, and took her to our vet here in Pea Ridge. They wanted to keep her for the day and overnight, for more monitoring and continued flushing of her systems.

We’ll know more in the morning.

Ugh.