Our elderly dog was bitten last Easter on Anglesey (if I knew how to post a photo on this forum, I'd post one to show you the sorry state of her).
She went out on her morning walk a normal dog and came back as one near death. It being Easter, we couldn't find a local vet open (we didn't know at the time what was wrong; we thought she'd had a heart seizure) and we didn't get her to the vet until 24 hours later. We were quite frantic.
She survived, but we had a very traumatic time with her. The dog before us at the vets had also been bitten by an adder.
If you're out in the countryside, especially on a hot day and you notice your dog become ill very quickly, think adder bite and get to a vet as soon as you can.
Although she survived, she was never the same dog again and we eventually had to put her to sleep.
We have other dogs and so I now google vets in any new touring area and keep a contact number in my phone.
Didnt realise that adders were on Anglesey,we are going to Nothumberland in July and have heard that some are up there.
Good advise about keeping local vets numbers in your phone.Our springer spaniel just loves to rummage around in the undergrowth so we will certainly be a bit more cautious with her now.
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Adders are widespread throughout the UK, but they are very shy and "run" from almost anything. Your poor dog probably startled it whilst it was sunbathing. Although rarely seen, they are fairly common in coastal sand dunes, so tread noisily when going to the beach.
Loads of adders around here when it was sunny, they like to sunbathe, and several nests were sighted in a field beloved by dog walkers. They haven't been seen since the wet and cold weather came back though, but it does seem that that spell of hot weather brought them out in force. I've never heard of them being around here, but I suppose they are everywhere, just that we don't come across them very often.
We have been given an antidote by a friend who's a holistic therapist (don't know what it is) but he says it will 'do' till we get to a vet. Just hope we never need it, but it stays in the glove box of the car.