Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Even with snake avoidance training it can still happen

I have had five GWPs over the past 30 years and never had one bitten by a rattler. I suppose we were due.

There are islands on Roosevelt Lake where I fish all spring. I have always taken my GWPs with me. I let them jump from the boat to swim to the islands. .

All my dogs have been given snake avoidance training. They will often sound the alarm around the house if any species of snake should show. Some are rattlers and the dogs stay away.

In addition to the avoidance training all dogs get the rattlesnake vaccine.

Late May the two dogs were running on an island when my older dog sounded the alarm and was barking at a bush. I called them in.

Asa came in first, I looked her over and she seemed fine. My younger GWP, Oli, was standing in the water when Asa sounded the alarm. He never does that. Either he is on shore running around or swimming to the boat. I called him and when he got in the boat I looked him over. Couldn't miss the two red bloody leaking spots against his white fur when he came back to the boat.

My best guess is he was running on the island and as he ran by the snake struck. He ALMOST missed getting nailed by the rattler. It hit his hind leg just above the foot. As I understand it by talking to a dog training friend all we can do the avoidance training and give them the vaccine. We cannot avoid occasional bites that happen with a dog while hunting. Often they will run past a snake and the snake will strike too late. Occasionally the snake connects.

I immediately got some benadryl into him and called ahead to get him into a vet's in Globe 25 miles away. The vet had antivenom into him within two hours. Vet said it was a bad bite. Space between the two fang marks was huge. Big snake on an island with no prey made for lots of venom. It took two vials of antivenom to stop the reaction. Was told the vaccine helped him as it would have been far worse without it. Vet kept him for two days and nights. This picture is the leg three days after the bite.

Once home Oli had a few days of malaise then he perked up. The wounds leaked a great deal of fluid. We had to put many old sheets and blankets over his bed and other favorite haunts in the house. The leaking stopped after a week or so. When I took him outdoors under supervision, because I wanted to keep him out of the pool, he would run on three legs.A few days later he was back to his impish mannerisms playing with toys and generally happy. It was good to have him feeling better. He began walking on the leg after 8 days.

Oli had to wear a cone for several weeks while the four areas of skin sloughing went through the healing stages. The worst one was the black area just above the stifle. It took a month for the last of the scab to fall off. Second picture was around the third week. His hair is slowing growing back now and there are four white areas that will either be scars or will eventually grow hair. There have been no lasting effects. It made a dent in my bank account but worth it.



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That looks ugly, but real glad Oli will recover. I remember that a friend's dogs running around the S Texas ranch would get bit. After several days they would come back to the house with swollen, sloughing muzzes. They never did die though.

Glad Oli had such a great owner--I know how much this treatment costs, and what an ugly mess the dog is for a long time! Not everyone can or will hack the expense and the aftercare. As we used to say, 'Ol Oli "fell into a tub of butter" when he came home with you!

Any idea WHICH rattler was responsible? "Big" to me says diamondback, but some others can live a long time and get quite large, too. Any perceptible central nervous system damage? (The ugly atrophy and sloughing of tissue is classic rattler damage but lasting nerve damage points to certain species.).

Rattler bites have produced some of the ugliest scarring on humans that I've ever seen, and I'm counting napalm and WP. Be careful where you put your hands and feet when in snake country!

And the precautions you took with your dogs seems to me to be "best practices"--all that could be done WAS done. Well done!

Thanks for the comments Doug and Mike.

Figure it was a Western Diamond back which is the species most likely to be seen around Roosevelt Lake elevation 2150 ft or so.. Never saw it. I wanted to go back and remove it from the island....permanently. Went out a few more times after taking a week off from fishing to ensure Oli was taken care of. Wife watched him after that first critical week. I considered going on the island but Asa would be with me.

No nerve damage. Vet did say there is a 4 hour window to get a dog in for best recovery.

I wrote this thread for others should their dog have this issue. There were quite few things we had to do to help him recover. I had no idea that there would be wound leakage.

I forgot to mention for the first ten days he was on antibiotics and I had to dab betadine on his wound twice a day followed by a gentle water rinse.


A friend has a GWP that he hunts occasionally but she accompanies him on his daily hikes. She has been bitten by rattlers three times!
Twice she has attacked the snake. She has been repeatedly given the snake avoidance training but it doesn't take. He and his wife keep a vet savings account for their dogs. He told me his dog recovers quickly after a vet visit and some antivenom. Must be smaller amounts of venom that poor Oli got.

Western Diamondback makes sense--they can get huge. I saw a pic from northern Montana of one over eight feet long a few years ago, and it wasn't a doctored pic-too many scalable items in it.

One reason we "don't allow" dogs in local wildlife reserves in SoCal, not that mere signage and a (very infrequent) ticket stops people from bringing them and then letting them off leash....not everyone takes as good care of their partners as you do. Maybe I should carry your pic of Oli's wound with me....

Just a point of clarification. If it was a western diamondback in the pic, it wasn't from Montana.

Glad the dog is recovering.

Having talked to my rattler specialist, I agree with Whttail in MT, that the pic I saw either wasn't from Northern MT or was very well faked, or both. Just another example of how much you can trust what is written or shown on the good 'ol I-net!

The maximum length known for the species in MT is 5'2"--way shorter than the Diamondback I was referring to. And the pic was of a Diamondback or a very skillful fake rendering of one. Maybe I (or the poster) got the state wrong?

How is Oli doing?

Hi Doug,

He is doing fine. It has been just over two months ago that it happened. Once he was walking on that leg he never showed any issues with nerves, muscles etc. He has been 100% for over 5 weeks.

It looks like there will be one small permanent scar on leg about 3/4" x 1/4" but hair near it will most likely cover it. Hair is slowly growing back.

Thanks for asking

Dang, that's ugly. Glad your pup is healed up. When I lived in the Mojave desert I worried about my pup running into a Mojave green rattler, nasty critters they are. Only bumped into one and didn't have an issue, thankfully. The load of #8's that vaporized its head may have been the decider.

Yeah I saw a pic of one on the net supposedly from Canyon ferry here in Montana....Uhhhhh...nope....


Prairie rattlers only here.


Glad the dog is going to be OK....I always dreaded that, and snake broke my best dog. Glad to say she was the only one at the ranch where we spent all our time, to go full term without being bitten.

Any outdoor usage dogs in my class get a snake avoidance session before graduation..

Regardless of training, a little reinforcement now and then does not hurt.

I agree on reinforcement. My older dog Asa is a great snake alarm. She sounds the howl then barks in a different pattern than any other thing. I killed a diamondback on the property about 10 days ago thanks to her. Oli is not anywhere as attuned.

I will be taking Oli for a refresher. My friend is going to have another snake avoidance class. He likes me to bring Asa. She will growl when she hears the snake rattle or if she smells it. He puts the snake on a rug with the leashed newbie dogs around 10 yds away in a semi circle with owners all sitting in chairs. The instant he puts out that snake Asa is all growls and occasional barking. Helps the other dogs realize something is not right. Oli will be put through the course again. He only had one class as a 8 month old dog.