Poor Patches

Last week poor Patches got herself bitten by a rattlesnake. I didn't see it happen, but I do know it was somewhere near the house. Elizabeth and Quin were out and about with Roger and Lisa while I came home from work to do a little work on the Honda.

The dogs were running around as usual having fun. I made a quick trip down to the gas station to fuel up the car, and when I returned, Patches was sitting on the front porch, shaking uncontrollably, and looked like this:

I called an emergency vet and described what I saw. They told me it definitely sounded like a snake bite and I should get her in immediately. I did, and she spent the night at the pooch hospital fighting off the venom.

She was totally in shock until they gave her some injections to cool things down. She was swollen, drooling like crazy, and bleeding all over from her mouth, where the bite was located.

I brought her home the next morning and took good care of her. I had to take her to daily vet visits to do blood work for a couple days, when things finally turned around and started heading in a positive direction.

We kept her calm and quiet and gave her lots of love. She spent the better part of six days up in our bedroom lying on her bed. This is what she looked like for nearly a week. She's normally a mellow dog, but she was REAL mellow:

Kind of reminds me of when one of our dogs Sierra got (presumably) stung by a scorpion. We called her Quasimodo for days after she blew up like a balloon.

Patches is much better now, back to normal in fact. But she does seem a little willing to stray very far from the house.