Day 7 of Carmella's Snake Bite Recovery, and Day 1 of EvoraPet Oral Probiotic

Carmella's skin color is getting better each day and the scab on her toe is healing. She still wants to sleep alot but when I take her outside she bounds around like she usually does and no longer avoids putting weight on the leg that was bitten by the snakes.

As you can see below, the bruise on her stomach is gradually shrinking in size and the edges are more defined.

The medications are doing their job. The only thing I notice out of the ordinary is that she's peeing alot more and more frequently than she usually does, and I'm not sure whether she's always aware of when she has to go. She slept on my bed agan for most of the day and when I left the room for just a few minutes to go to the kitchen I thought she had gone back to sleep but when I came back she was still on the bed but I saw a big puddle on my rug. Carmella looked at me guiltily and jumped down to leave the room. She has been housebroken for a long time and usually whines when she has to go to the bathroom. I don't know if the urge came on suddenly this time or what was wrong but she can usually hold it long enough for me to get her out the door in plenty of time.

I had to use a big towel on the rug and then spray some enzyme on it so that my room wouldn't stink. The enzyme is left to air dry over a 24 hour period while it dissolves the urine and any bacteria in it. It's a good thing I had almost a full bottle left because I've rarely had to use it. If any of you have puppies this stuff is good to have on hand and works better than bleach, Pine Sol, or most other commercial cleaners/disinfectants because it gets right to the root of the odor rather than covering it up or using potentially toxic chemicals. Most brands of enzyme are biodegradeable and just dissipate once they've done what they're designed to do. You can ask for it at just about any pet supply store.

Well, speaking of pet products, I put a scoop of that EvoraPet on Carmella's food tonight. The company says it's tasteless but she managed to weed the majority of it out and shove that part of her food aside after eating the rest. They must have forgotten that a dog's sense of smell is way stronger than ours! I had worried that might happened and wondered how one could be sure the animal got the full dose that way.

Luckily Carmella can't resist the juice that seperates from yogurt and I had some in the refrigerator, so I poured that over the pieces of dog food she'd refused and the flavor of that disguised the flavor or smell of the probiotic powder and then she licked the bowl clean of every last particle.

Before her first dose I took pictures of some of her teeth so that I can do comparisons over the next few weeks. Her teeth are fairly white but she does tend to get tartar around the gumline, especially around her molars. I think this is due to her strangely proportioned head which is about half as long as it should be for her size, and her teeth are set way back into her head. Although she chews on bones and dog biscuits daily those molars are too far back for these to scrape off the plaque, and it's next to impossible to stick a toothbrush back that far. Her molars nearly reach the back of her throat! When you open her mouth wide enough to see it kind of looks like the jaws of an alligator except that her snout is not proportionally as long.

Photographing her teeth with one hand while keeping her mouth open (and still) with the other was hard to do but I got a few really good shots. You can see that she has some yellow in the grooves of her molars that are hardest to reach. Probably being on antibiotics for the Copperhead bites has actually already helped her breath because I could stand to get near her mouth which I can't do when it's at its worst, but the yellow areas in her teeth will serve as a good baseline, and it's possible that her breath will be even better once she's been on this a little while. Her mouth is still rather slimy (which it isn't after her teeth have recently been cleaned) so if that goes away that is likely an indication it's working also.

Left upper molar

I'm not sure whether the little black dot in this molar on the upper left side is a cavity or some sort of particle.

Left lower molar

Right side upper molars and lower teeth (Close-up)

Right upper molars and lower teeth

Upper right Canines and Bicuspids

The teeth closer to the front of Carmella's mouth have less visible plaque. There's only a little bit right at the gumline. Her chewing of bones and dog treats has definitely prevented alot of it from forming on these teeth.

Cuspids and Left Side Canine (Upper)

I'll take more photos of her teeth periodically to compare with these.

Here are a few cute shots I took of her in the kitchen today.

Carmella licking her healing foot

 Carmella playing with big bone

 Carmella walking and turning around

Carmella with front foot tucked under chest and ears at attention

In the morning the man from Rid-a-Critter is coming to look around for any possible snake dens and I hope, will be able to tell me if there are snakes living on the property. Maybe he can let me know the best methods for keeping them from using my backyard as a hiding place or throughway so that Carmella will be safe to go out there without being bitten again. I took her out on the leash tonight and since it was too dark for me to see what was on the ground I didn't go very far from the driveway or let her get close to any bushes or high foliage of other types. She kept wanting to go into the back yard and seemed to hear something back there. I don't know what it was but was too leery to go look since it was around the same time of night that she was bitten. There's no telling what ghastly things might have been creeping (or slithering) around in the dark. (Cue spooky music).

Despite the fact that snakes can be pretty bad-tempered and defensive I think they are nonetheless beautiful animals. I've even got a few wearable snakes available for purchase in my jewelry shop on Etsy. These make wonderful gifts! Click on the photos for more details on each piece.

Sterling Silver Snake Bracelet with Genuine Emerald Eyes (Strong Medicine)

Abstract Snakes Intertwined Ring - Argentium Sterling and Fine Silver