India has the heaviest snakebite burden in the world, and dogs, who investigate everything nose-first, meet snakes more often than their owners realise.
There is a lot of folklore around what to do. Almost all of it makes things worse.
What to do
1. Keep your dog still.
Movement circulates venom faster. Carry your dog if you can safely do so, even a large one, even awkwardly. If you cannot carry it, walk it slowly rather than letting it run.
2. Keep the bitten area below heart level, where practical.
3. Drive to a vet immediately.
4. Call ahead. This matters more than for most emergencies: not every clinic stocks antivenom. Calling lets them prepare, or send you directly to somewhere that has it, rather than losing time on a wasted journey.
5. Note the time of the bite, and take a photo of the swelling as it starts, so its progression is documented.
What not to do
Every item on this list is commonly recommended and every one is harmful.
No tourniquet. Binding the limb tightly concentrates venom locally, which worsens tissue destruction, and cutting off blood supply causes its own damage. When the tourniquet comes off, accumulated venom can enter the circulation all at once.
No cutting the wound. It does not remove meaningful venom and it adds a contaminated wound to an envenomation.
No sucking the venom out. It does not work.
No ice. It worsens local tissue damage.
No alcohol, no herbal application, no "stone".
No medication, not painkillers, not antihistamines. Human painkillers are toxic to dogs anyway, and giving anything complicates the clinical picture the vet is trying to read.
Do not chase, catch or kill the snake. It wastes time your dog does not have and risks a second bite to you. If it is already dead, or you safely got a photograph, that is useful, never handle one, including an apparently dead one, because reflex bites are well documented.
What a bite looks like
Dogs are most often bitten on the face and front legs, because that is what they investigate with.
Signs:
- Sudden yelping or startling while outdoors
- Rapid, painful swelling, often dramatic, and often facial
- Puncture marks, sometimes two, sometimes only one, sometimes none visible under the swelling
- Bleeding from the site that does not clot normally
- Drooling, vomiting
- Weakness, wobbliness, collapse
- Dilated pupils, muscle tremors
- Difficulty breathing, particularly serious with facial swelling or with neurotoxic venom
- Bruising, or blood in urine
Not every bite delivers venom. A proportion of bites are "dry". That is not something you can determine at home, and the dog still needs assessing.
Facial swelling can compromise the airway as it progresses, which is one reason a bite that looks manageable in the first ten minutes still needs immediate attention.
Why speed matters
Antivenom is the only specific treatment, and it works best given early, before venom has bound to tissue and before the cascade of effects is established.
Everything else a clinic does, fluids, pain relief, wound management, clotting support, airway management, is supportive.
The single most useful thing you can do before it ever happens: find out now which clinics near you stock antivenom. Not during. It is a two-minute phone call on an ordinary day, and in a rural or semi-rural area in India it may determine which direction you drive.
Prevention, realistically
Highest risk periods: monsoon, when snakes are displaced by flooding, and warm evenings.
Practical measures:
- Keep grass short and clear undergrowth, woodpiles, rubble and debris near the house
- Control rodents, rats attract snakes
- Lead walks in high-risk areas, especially at dusk and in long grass
- Torch after dark, always, when walking on rural or semi-rural ground
- Discourage nose-first investigation of holes, crevices and rubble
- Keep water bowls away from dense cover
For free-roaming and community dogs, prevention is mostly environmental, clearing rubbish and controlling rodents around the areas where they sleep.
The bottom line
Still, low, and straight to a vet. Call ahead to find antivenom.
No tourniquet, no cutting, no sucking, no ice, no medication, no chasing the snake.
And find out today which clinic near you carries antivenom. That is the piece of information that is impossible to obtain quickly at the moment it becomes essential.
Sudden facial swelling in a dog that was outdoors is a snake bite or a severe allergic reaction until proven otherwise. Both are immediate, and neither is something to watch.