Loosing Molly

The day after dropping Eileen off at LAX, I took Molly to The High Desert Animal Hospital for a rattlesnake booster. We had seen the sign on the vet's wall recently and realized that since Molly would be staying here into the hot days of May, when the local reptiles would be fully awake and travelling about, that it would be a good idea. I had never seen a rattlesnake on my land or anywhere else, which is kind of surprising after all the time I had spent on Camp Pendleton, climbing my hill in Joshua Tree and travelling the rest of Southern California. However, strolling neighbors had seen them sunbathing on our rocks in the heat of the summer. On March 17 she got her 2nd and final booster. The vaccinations need to be repeated annually.

On the 24th, Molly disappeared. I had let her out first thing in the morning to do her thing. I got distracted by something and the next time I looked she was gone. She does not normally take off like that so I assume she caught the scent of some interesting animal that had passed through in the night. I searched everywhere on foot, climbed the hill with binoculars and searched our side of the valley, got in the car and drove all the roads calling her name. Nothing. I called the dog pounds and the shelters in the extended area. Nothing. By late afternoon I was worn out and more or less resigned to the inevitable when the phone rang. It was the Yucca Valley Animal Control Center, one of the places I had called that morning. They had her. It was 4:30. If I could get there before 5:00, I could have her. I made it with 6 minutes to spare. $55 later, we were out of there. That included a new $15 license & tag.

The next morning she did her thing, firmly on a leash, then back to her short line on the deck. I settled in on my computer with coffee, downloaded my email and read the news. For the heck of it, I checked my spam folder, where most spam automatically goes. I normally glance over it, run a routine that deletes the obvious spam, verify that no good email remains, and then delete the whole batch. This time there was something in that folder that should not have been there. It had arrived the morning before while I was out searching for Molly. Since it was not in my Inbox, I had missed it.

Every unanswered call to my home phone and my cell phone goes to voicemail where it is forwarded to me as an email attachment, along with a textual transcription. The call was from a guy I had met once or twice that lives down on Turtle Road, about a half mile away. It said "Molly is over at my house. So I have her on the leash. She's outside. You can come and get her. It's on the corner of ...". He had called the number on her tag, my cell number. I remembered getting a call from an "Unknown" while I was searching. Out of habit, and because I was distracted, I ignored the call because "Unknown" is normally a marketer and I knew it would go to voicemail and I could check it later. Later, it was not in my Inbox so I assumed they had hung up, and I forgot about it. I do not know why the spam filter decided to put it into the spam folder. Other calls before and since have gone to the Inbox.
That afternoon, I went to Home Depot and bought everything necessary to install a nice long dog line with a leash line attached to a trolley. No more worries. She can run back and forth on the 100 foot line all she wants. All I had to do now and then was unwind her from around a bush. It worked great; I could not have been more relieved. I did know that she could not be left out on a line while away, which could make her fair game for a cougar. Also, if she got hung up on a bush, she could not reach her water, which is essential in this dry climate. When away, we put her inside the trailer with her cage and her untippable water bowl.

My First Snake
On April 17 I saw my first rattlesnake. It was laying in the driveway immediately below the dog line. Uh, Oh! It was unable to move. I could see by the tracks that when I had gone out earlier, I had backed over its mid-section and then again as I pulled out. It was alive, and in fact my approaching it apparently gave it the wherewithal to scramble forward and into the cover of a bush. I went and got my wide bladed iron pry bar and brought it down through the bush and through the snake's neck. I could not really see well through the foliage so I also drove my shovel blade down beside the pry bar just to make sure.

All of this disturbed me considerably, first the eye-opening discovery that they really do come through here and that it had been such a very close call for Molly, but even more that I had to kill it. I do not like killing anything. There is something sacrosanct about anything that is alive. I capture bugs and throw them out the window - except for mosquitoes and horse flies, and I have been known to vacuum up spiders, on purpose.

Katherine next door said that she would like to have the body of the snake so that she could learn how to skin it and mount it. I scooped the body into a zip-lock bag and delivered it to her. The head had been buried when I chopped it off so I left it there, knowing that even dead snake heads are full of venom. Two weeks later, I noticed that it had somehow made its way to the surface, so I dug a deep hole high up in my extended driveway and buried it before Molly or any other creature might decide to nose it around.
On the 26th I received the new leather collar that I had ordered from Dogs Afield Online on the 6th. It included a riveted brass tag with her name, phone and license number engraved into it. I do not like the dangling tags that get caught on things and torn off. I researched this carefully and selected them for the riveted tag and also for the apparent quality of the leather collar. I was not disappointed; the workmanship was excellent. However it took them awhile to get it done. I suspect that they subcontracted it out to some old guy doing the work in his basement. I don't know this; just speculating. Then a few weeks later I received another UPS notice that my order was being shipped, so I quickly replied that they had already sent it to me and that I did not need another. Never heard any more, so I guess they straightened it out.

The next day, April 27th, Molly got bit.

Molly's Snake
She was out on her line and I was in the utility house on my computer when I heard a single abrupt and surprised bark. It was unusual enough that I got up fast and went out in time to see the snake retreating into the rocks and Molly pawing at her head. I could see the two bites on opposite sides of her nostril. She tends to poke her nose into anything that moves, so I knew how it had happened. I called our vet at the VCA Yucca Valley Animal Hospital immediately. It was 5:30 and they close at 6:00 so I got Molly into the car and pealed out. When we got there, they took her in back and told me to wait in the lobby. Later they came out and said that she was on an IV and under sedation; all they could do now was wait and see.
In the morning the vet, Dr Todd Taylor, called and told me that she was holding her own. He had checked in on her during the night. At one point her head had swollen to twice its size, but much of that was gone now. Due to the previous boosters, the effect of the venom was minimized but he was still concerned about permanent tissue damage and how it would affect internal organs like the kidneys and the liver. For that reason he asked permission to administer an anti-venom ($697 per vial). I told him to go ahead. At 10:00 I was allowed to visit her in her pen. She was awake, but groggy. We said hello.

The next morning they did the blood work and the results were good; they saw no indication of internal damage. I could come and get her.
As I paid the $1548, I asked if the boosters had actually saved me anything. They said it was impossible to say because so many factors determine the treatment, such as the type of dog, the type of rattlesnake and the number of bites. However, another guy had just paid over $5000 for a similar bite where he had not gotten the boosters.

By the time I got her home, I had already taken down the dog line. She stayed in the utility house with me and my computer and began to gradually shed the effects of the ordeal over time.
The only problem was getting the elastic IV bands off of her legs. After the first attempt, she had my number. Anytime I approached her legs with scissors or a knife, she would make it clear that it was NOT going to happen. Her skin is super-sensitive, probably because she had a mild form of lime disease as a pup, and of course her legs would be sore from the IV's anyhow. It took a number of days before she would allow me to even touch her legs, and that was limited to a light scratching of the area with my fingernails, which she liked. If there was anything in my hands, she was on to me instantly.

One day I was slicing open my mail with a new and sharp letter opener that I had just purchased at Wal-Mart. It is basically a small white rectangle of plastic, one side of which has a long narrow triangular cut-out. Inside the crotch of that cut-out is a razor blade. I practiced cuffing it inside the palm of my hand as I scratched a leg. It worked; she did not notice it in my hand. I deftly slipped the cut-out over the elastic and quickly but gently pushed it down through the elastic band which in turn fell to the floor. I counted my blessings and backed off. The next day I did the same on the other leg. Mission accomplished.

As I took her out on the leash periodically, she resumed poking her nose into everything. Our plan is to break her of that. There are people who actually train dogs to avoid rattlesnakes. I learned that they use a method that we are in fact already familiar with - a remote controlled training collar.
Back east we have a wire buried 6" deep all the way around the property. The wire begins and ends at a control box inside the house. Attached to a nylon web collar is a battery box with 2 metal prongs that gently touch the skin. To give the skin a rest, we remove the collar at night. If she gets near the underground wire loop, she hears a tone; closer she feels a slight vibration; too close and she gets a mild shock. After the initial training period of a month or so, she learned to stay within the confines of the wire. When we take her out with us, we turn off the box, exchange that collar for her real collar and take her out a certain door which she has come to learn is safe.

We have been using this PetSafe Electric Stubborn Dog Fence System for 6 years now and have had no problems, except for when I cut through the loop wire with a shovel which I repaired with a soldering iron. It also includes a remote control that can be used for other purposes, such as to stop the dog from digging, jumping on people, or barking. It only works when the control box is on so it would not be of much use to us out west. However they do have a PetSafe remote unit that will work independently.

There are plenty of lizard and rodent holes in the high desert, any one of which could harbor a snake. The plan is to get the remote that can be used to zap her by pressing a button every time she pokes her nose into a hole or bush. That of course means that the trainer has to be right with her as she checks out the territory. He has to be alert and very self-disciplined to avoid zapping her prematurely when she won't know what she is being zapped for. If this is done correctly, she will learn to keep her nose out of things. If done haphazardly, it will just confuse her and perhaps turn her into a neurotic mess.
On May 4th, two days before our departure, she was on her short line on the deck and I was inside the trailer. I heard and then saw her paying very close attention to something out in the rocks. As I approached the rocks I saw what I believed to be the same snake that had bitten her. I grabbed my camera and got some fair but slightly nervous pictures. They were not as good as I would have liked but I had no interest in getting any closer. A rattler can coil & leap very fast.
After considerable research, I finally determined that this was a Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake, as was the one that had been run over, perhaps this one's mate. I hope they did not have babies.

Rattlers do not run around looking for victims to bite, unless that victim is small enough to swallow whole. They much prefer to mind their own business. If they are disturbed, their first instinct is to get away. If they feel safe, such as inside a bush, they will usually just lay still and let you pass. If they feel trapped, then they will strike. If they cannot escape, such as in a hole, they will continue to strike repeatedly.

I was speaking to a young lady who works at Coyote Corners in town, a business owned by a friend of mine whom I had dropped by to see shortly after Molly was bit. She casually mentioned that her home out on the open flats is surrounded by rattlesnakes just about all the time. She and her dog come and go as they please. They ignore the snakes and the snakes ignore them. Her dog is a laid back Golden Retriever with no interest in poking its nose into anything. However, she did realize that getting the $38 boosters would still be a good idea.



Copyright © 2010, Van Blakeman