Connie has been snake bitten

[Megan le Fey]

Wednesday morning Connie(big girl - Great Dane) came in carrying one hind leg and howling in pain. I got her to the vet, hoping for a dislocation and fearing a ruptured cruciate ligament. The vet thought that the cruciate was most likely and sent me away with anti-inflamm. meds. He said that it was too swollen and too painful to be able to manipulate etc. to properly diagnose and to return Friday pm.

Instead of subsiding, the swelling got far worse and, from her behaviour, the pain also. She wouldn't eat or drink anything and I was syringing water into her but she is still a little dehydrated. When we got back to the vet today he was concerned for infection and for a possible broken leg or whatever so he did X-rays and everything came out normal. Anyway, to get to the point, he decided that she has been snake-bitten. When I expressed my relief that it wasn't anything very bad (not to mention expensive) he suggested that it could actually be very bad and that it is not a foregone conclusion that she will recover OK. After half a lifetime in Africa, anything less than a mamba, a puff adder or a gaboon viper has always seemed to be small potatoes. Are there seriously poisonous snakes here? Connie weighs 60kg so should be able to cope with a mildly poisonous bite, however, her leg is very, very swollen and still very painful.

I shall post this on Wildlife as well in case there is any info. to be had from the experts there.

[Merlin]

Oh Anne, how is Connie?  I've only just seen this post!

[ericd]

I have always read that the only poisonous snake present in France is of the Viper family. (I guess you have different family types of the beast).