St. Petersburg, Florida – Every day Stu and Christina Saylor take their dog Adrian for a walk near their Carillon Center home.
“She actually likes to come out and play with the squirrels and the rabbits,” says Stu.
But last week when off her leash, the Boston terrier tackled something much more dangerous. She came out of the brush with a bleeding hind leg.
“It just kept bleeding and she didn’t want to get up,” says Christina.
The Saylors rushed Adrian to VCA Noah’s Place Animal Medical Center, where veterinarians discovered not one, not two, but six snake bites.
Adrian’s checkup today with Veterinarian Tamara Berlin went so well, it’s hard to believe that just five days ago Adrian was dying. “She looks a thousand times better,” says Berlin. “She was very touch and go there for awhile.”
With survival chances slim, at one point the Saylors considered euthanizing their pet, but Adrian still had a spark in her eye.
“Being in the Marines for 23 years and on several combat tours, I just didn’t want to lose another friend,” says Stu.
So the couple OK’d some aggressive and costly treatment. It took a large dose of antivenin and a blood transfusion from a German shepherd for Adrian to pull through.
Adrian’s owners never saw the snake, but the vet thinks a rattler did the damage and she says there are any number of other snakes in Florida that can harm your pet. Symptoms from a snake bite show up within 30 minutes; they include dramatic swelling and bleeding that does not stop.
If you suspect a snake bite, Berlin says prompt treatment is the key to survival. Bring your pet to a vet; it’s better to be safe than sorry. “Absolutely, I would rather say, ‘no, this is not a snake bite, this is a bee sting or this was an ant bite,'” says Berlin.
As for Adrian, she’ll still get her daily walks, but no more romps in the brush.