Doggy Was Bitten :( in Days of My Destiny

My poor little doggy was bitten by a snake this afternoon :( He is alive still (as far as we know) but is staying at the Vet Hospital overnight. They said they will call if they have dramatic news, but no news will mean good news. If we get no phonecall then I have to call them at 9am tomorrow morning to get an update.

Poor little thing :(

We didn't see it happen, we were all hanging out inside. The thing is, I had slept this afternoon and when I got up, I saw him hanging around, looking lonely, in the courtyard. I was going to let him in but was half asleep still and starving. If I had just let him in, then he wouldn't have been bitten :( Anyway we heard a big YELP and then he was crying and crying! We let him inside to see what had happened and he was sort of limping, his tail between his legs. He had a little spot of blood on his left "ankle" (which is about snake-bite-height). He then was really pasty (dogs get really really thirsty when they get bitten by snakes - something I only found out by chance on the weekend in social conversation!!!!). Then he started heaving, until he vomited and pooed all at the same time :(

This was all in a matter of ten minutes, so we rang our vet. The actual Vet was out on-call, so they told us to ring two other vets and to get back to them if there was no luck. In the meantime they would try to ring Dave (the qualified vet). This was outside normal business hours by now. Anyhow in the end, the other two vetes couldn't help us, and I was grateful for that because it meant that we could go to our normal vet, where they have all our details. One of the girls there already knows our doggy so she was calling him by name gently and patting him, which was nice. Poor thing, he was vomiting froth at the vet :( They put him on a drip and then began to give him anti-venom. There is no real guarantee for the success rate, apparently, as all dogs react differently to snake bites. Some will seemingly recover and then just die a few days later. Some need lots of anti-venom while some need not as much. I'm thinking well, my doggy is a toughie. He's the type to chase cows and revel in the comraderie. So a part of me is confident that he will pull through.

We have seen one snake hanging around here and there. We're not afraid of it and the animals have seemed to know to stay still near it. We've only seen it once or twice, but we know it must be around SOMEWHERE. Then the other night I saw the end of a snake's tail go under the house. It was a grey coloured one (as opposed to the black one we already know about). Someone said the grey one must be a Whip Snake, which is nowhere near as dangerous as the black snake. So I'm hoping that if anything, my doggy was bitten by the Whip Snake.

Knowing that there is a snake about doesn't worry me so much. I know it sounds stupid, but the thing is, the general consensus is that snakes are to be despised at all costs, when really, all it takes is knowing what to do when there is one about. Knowledge is Power, it really is. Some people have suggested we get a rifle to shoot at them. To me, that would be a last resort as there are other ways to get rid of them (which we haven't tried yet). For us, our dog being bitten was only a matter of time, seeing as he likes to run off into the paddocks all the time. The sobering part about today though is that he wasn't far from the house when he was bitten, it didn't sound like he was too faraway when we heard the initial yelp. Which means that really............ as careful as we might be, it might only be a matter of time before one of us are bitten? Need to really be looking into our options in that regard. I am a firm believer in that God is really keeping us safe out here and looking after us, and this is why the whole snake thing hasn't really bothered me too much. But it's never a stupid thing to be prepared and so on. And so far I think we HAVE been well-prepared. We have put measures in place to reduce the actual amount of snakes about, which is great. We never leave food about etc (that they would go for), we lock up the chickens etc. But there will always be mice about (thankfully not in the house) and despite the mouse bait etc, eradicating the mice completely is impossible - and it's the mice the snakes will mostly be after.

Being home without our Principe Moreno ("Brown Prince" - as I sometimes call him lol) just isn't quite the same. Usually of a night time after the girls have gone to bed, I let him in the house for a while and he hangs out with me on the couch in the lounge room.

I really hope he's okay, we've been praying for him and I sent a message to mum about it too. I just really hope that the goodbye we said earlier this evening wasn't a final one.