Copperhead got my dog right in the face Saturday in the mountains. She is right at 60lbs.
I went up early to my cabin Friday to do a little repair work on a fire pit wood rack we use to shovel coals from for a cinder block type cooker that sets off to the side. Cooked pig butts and chickens for the fourth.

The dog doing what she does found her a young rabbit and put the kill on right off the bat. A few minutes later a buddy helping me saw her jump up in the air about 3 feet in some small weeds. She kept focusing on the weed patch with a lot of cautious intent. My buddy had just killed a copperhead beside his cabin chimney the day before so we figured we had better see what she was infatuated on. I cut a thin limber switch from a tree and started carefully moving the weeds around and sure enough, about a 16"er was all coiled up and ready to hit again. One slap behind the head with the switch and the snake was done for.

I looked my dog over real quick and couldn’t see anything obvious at first so I though she may have got lucky. Nope, her natural demeanor had quickly changed just enough that I told my buddy that she got hit somewhere. Still couldn’t tell where until her left eye started swelling shut. I took a good look at her and there was a drop of blood just right above the eyelid at the tear duct. daymn

Off to the vet 65 miles away on a holiday weekend!!...arrrrrgh
Vet done her thing, couple shots and took a good look at the eyeball And said it missed it all together. One fang was above the eyeball right in the corner of her eye and the the other one hit in the eyelid right below the eye about 5/8 of inch apart.
I was afraid she might lose sight in that eye but she seems to be recovering pretty well at this point. Still not her self yet but that could be partly due to meds too.

Another buddy called me on my way home yesterday and he had just killed another one at his place right down the creek from my cabin. That made it a 3 snake week-end, not all that unusual in itself. We have killed as many as 12 on this holiday week end in prime conditions.

I think my four legged friend got lucky this go around, hopefully she won’t ever go through this again.
First dog I have ever had to get bit. At least that I know of. I’m glad it wasn’t a rattler or things might have been a lot worse.

Hoping the best for your furry friend, wishing that she has a full recovery.

Copperhead bites generally aren't that bad. They have a hemotoxin in the venom that destroys red blood cells and causes a lot of bleeding and swelling, but generally healing is complete. Dogs and cats, especially cats for some reason, have a greater resistance to the toxin than humans and tend to recover quickly.

Cottonmouths and Rattlesnakes, not so much. They have far worse juice in them.

Hope your dog fully recovers. I know, sooner or later, one of my two Springers are going to run across one. What did the vet give her?

I’d litter thr place with moth balls

Be careful with mothballs around dogs. One of the two types will kill a dog.

Man, I'm dreading that day, we just moved from a small town in VA to Cumberland County, out in the sticks (a little), and we have a "town raised" Collie with NO common sense at all. We're told this area is chock full of Copperheads, local utility guy was afraid to walk 15' past our yard edge to go check on a possible old well head. So far this year, we've seen about four snakes on the property, two Rats and two Blacksnakes, and while I was clearing some brush and a couple small trees, found somebody's "shed tree", full of about four sheds, each about 3-4' long. I let the dog run loose in our smallish fenced back yard, and we walk him on a leash, but even with me looking that's no guarantee that I can spot one before dumb@ss does.

Glad to hear yours did not get it as bad as she could have, and hoping for a speedy recovery for her. Do you (or does the vet) think she got a dry bite, or maybe a low dose of venom?

Gratuitous pic of dumb Collie boy trying to sleep with his head up... (that's a lot of nose for a pissed of Copperhead to be able to tag!)

Hope your dog recovers well. Had that happen to my son's dog couple years ago while we had him for the weekend. Vet gave him a shot and prescribed benadryl.

Some kind of shot for infection and another loaded full of electrolytes of some sort to help counter any possible short term effects on her kidneys and liver as I understood it. Plus two different pills to give her for the next three days.
I don’t think the dog got a heavy dose of venom in her, but 1/4 inch up or down and she would have had a punctured eyeball.
Appreciate the well wishes, looks like she is going to be fine.

Prayers for a quick recovery

My buddy got bit by a copperhead one morning on his hand. He didn't even go to the doctor. He came on in to work. His hand swelled a little and he got kind of sick. That changed the way I felt about him. I considered him a really tuff guy without a brain in his head after that. I hate snakes. Especially rattlers, copperheads and cottonmouths!

I took these photos in WalMart the other day because I’d never seen these before, dunno how well they work or if they work on outside snakes

That even has the pic of a copperhead on the package!
I don’t want to mess with the good snakes.

I’ve seen snakes laying next to moth balls

Damn, bro. Glad she's gonna be ok. She dodged a bullet with the eyeball.

Then burn it down 🤣

Build snake traps around the yard so you can release good snakes.

Snake train the dog.

Vets give snake vaxes to reduce reaction to bites. 2 shots a couple weeks apart the first year then one shot yearly.

There is no good snake

We have a black lab who is about eight years old. He is very friendly and thinks everyone comes to see him. He never barks and always glad to see you. He is a terrible watch dog. He would show a thief where the keys are. One evening we heard him bark and thought that's odd. Went outside and there was a rattle snake coming up the ramp to the back deck. The dog was on the deck barking at the snake but wouldn't get any closer. Another time he was acting strange and there was a rattle snake tangled up in the wire fence around the back yard. It was some kind of mad. Don't know how it got tangled up in the fence. The dog has never had any snake training but seems to know. He also gets nervous if anything is out of place in the back yard. If my wife let's her chickens out he paces the back porch until they go back in.

Walked up on a Copperhead a couple of days ago, VLD I didn’t step on him. Got bit when 17, no fun!

Anyone here ever had a dog killed by a venomous snake?

My Beagle got nailed on the forearm by a copperhead. It swelled all up. Doc said not to worry, no antivenin needed and she would not die. She was real sick for a week but, healed up OK.

No.

Had 3 bitten. The 2 with the copperhead bites were hardly inconvenienced.

Had a mutt bitten in the face by a rattler and he had a rougher time of it. Head swelled up badly. Called the vet, and talked to him. (I was 40 miles from town) Vet said by this time, he'd either make it or not. Trip to town wouldn't change the odds.

He laid in the shade of the porch for 3 days, and the swelling went down, and he felt better, and got up, and resumed his life.

I do snake train my dogs now. Just got a pup who is too young to train. I gotta watch him.

That's been my experience with Moccasin and Rattler bites.

I've had several dogs get bit by Copperheads through the years. I lost a young Springer to a rattler on the Fourth of July many years ago.

This exactly happened with a Shepard I had, multible Moccasin bites, 8 I could identify.
Swelling was pretty bad but it all passed after 3 days laying on the back porch.

I have mostly good snakes around the place here.
Quite a few Black snakes and Banded Water snakes.

Gotta neighbor the tells me he's been killing a lot of Moccasins.
He's been around less than a year, he's probably killing the Banded Water snakes, he's from Ohio what the hell would he know about Moccasins.

This big Rat snake is a regular.
Hard to tell from this image but it's just around 5ft.



I think she recently hatched some young.

These juvenile Rat Snakes started showing up about a week ago.





More good snakes around than bad.

I just blasted two rattlers out in the iron pile while looking for flat spokes.

One got away.


Damn rattlers.

Their tasty little morsels.

One demerit!

No kidding.

He was so fast I couldn't believe it. Got under a big concrete slab before I could get my dog out of the line of fire.


The little 365 XL is handy!


Kill all sorts of things with it. Sheep, cows, snakes, gophers and a porcupine in Dad's tree.

This today was the 5th and 6th big rattler killed around the house this year.


One bit my daughter's horse as she was riding out of the gate. Right above the hoof.


Open season....no bag limits.

I was crossing a small creek last week and saw a cottonmouth about 25 yards off. His head was behind some brush so I aimed the 22 mag at his middle and fired. Dang thing went under water and reappeared about 10 feet from me. Then he came at me and I hit him with 2 loads of 44 Special snake shot from my GP100. Fight ended with his head about 3 inches from my foot.

Then I shot a second smaller one with the 22 mag rifle that had been watching the show from the opposite bank. 22 mag works better on the head shots.

Dang I really hate the snakes when it's over 100 out and too hot for snake boots!

My kitty got nailed by one last summer on her paw and right after got run over by a car I quit counting how many lives she has left but she kills the copperheads like birds now

Mrs slumlord had a little wire haired Benji dog. Mfer got bit at least twice I know of. Kept on truckin.

Pimp dog to all the farm bitches for 5 miles.

Killed an about 20" copperhead yesterday with the SP101 and CCI snake shot while out checking on the wild raspberries around 60 yds from the house. First one Ive seen around here in awhile. Have a good amount of non venomous snakes here which normally get a pass unless right at the house or if the wife sees them. She hates ALL snakes so they get dead lol.

Her cocker spaniel got nailed by a copperhead on the paw a few years back. Got some meds from vet and other than some swelling he didnt seem real affected by it.

Damn dude!


Luckily we don't have rattlers around here.

South of the river a couple miles, yes. And we have them over north of the lake west of here. But nothing here.

I hate snakes too

Hope your dog gets better !

Our most common snake here is the Gopher snake.....around the house anyhow

Plenty of rattlers out in the desert & foot hills

Just the other day...young Gopher snake in my garage.......SOB

Told him this is not your space & helped him leave into a nearby field

We’ve got every venomous species here in SW GA. If you just have to get bit by one, they say the one to get bit by is a copperhead. I agree…I’ve been bitten by one. Most of the times it’s equivalent to a bad bad wasp sting….but there are certainly cases where it’s worse.

Woke up one morning and my lab was raising hell in her concrete run. I looked through the bedroom window and saw a cottonmouth in her pen. Couldn’t get out there fast enough….it bit her on the head and exited before I could make it there. Her head swelled up to the size of a basketball and nothing but slits for eyes. Looked downright Asian! Got her doped up at the vet and she told me to go ahead and take her home, that she’d done all she could for her, help wise, and she’d either be alive or dead by morning.

Next morning I peeked out the window, dreading what I might see. Belle, my lab, was sitting there grinning from ear to ear ready for her breakfast. I was lucky…..if that would have been an Eastern Diamondback it probably would have been a different conclusion.

We have EDB’s, Canebrakes, Pigmy Rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, copperheads and coral snakes. Plus gators.

This one went out in style with a savage 24

A 380 works as well just have to hit the in the head

Thing about copperheads they have been known to climb up in trees. I have been told this by more than one person, one of which was a surveyor.

I'm gonna have to get some of those large glue traps, might be good for a prank or two on one of the guys at work.

I almost stepped on a 10-12” Copperhead a while back while putting up a mosquito repeller. I was standing next to a small pine tree with some leaves and pine straw at the base and something caught my peripheral vision by my feet. When I looked down, it took a few seconds for the camouflaged snake to register. He was at most 10” from my foot, coiled and ready to fight.

I quickly hopped backand yelled for my wife to get a shovel. Man, that sucker was hard to see, easy to step on.

Damn, man! Just crossed Georgia off any potential relo list for me and the wife.

Well, tndrbstr, glad to hear it sounds like the pup is doin' better. Let's hope for a speedy recovery.

Glad the Pup is alright.

Damn snakes, I'm glad we don't have venomous ones here.

We have a place in Bledsoe County (next to Cumberland County). It's not uncommon to see copperheads on our place this time of the year. I usually see 3-4/yr. I don't go out in the fields without boots on. I usually run over several that I don't see when cutting the fields.

In an area with that many snakes, I would think seriously about getting my dog "snake-proofed" (shock-collar + de-fanged copperhead, rattler, moccasin)

snakes don't bother me.