DAILY CAMERA (Boulder, Colorado) 25 May 03 Dog owners beware: Venom slithers in the prairie grass - Dogs love rattlesnakes, until they strike. (Chris Barge)
Bobbie Klein hopes her 12-year-old Siberian Husky keeps her recent curiosity over the slithering creatures alive. From a distance.
Last month, Klein was walking Alexandra on the Wonderland Lake Trail near her North Boulder home around 9 a.m. with her husband and a friend. Alexandra started pulling on her leash toward the side of the trail to investigate.
"She was very excited," Klein said. "As soon as I saw it was a snake, I got out of there. Later, my husband said it was coiled and rattling."
Prairie rattlesnakes, this region's only venomous snake, are coming into their high summer season. They are more active now, primarily in grassland areas, where they feed on field mice, deer mice, meadow voles and Richardson ground squirrels. On sunny mornings, and at dusk, they like to bask on sun-drenched rocks, flattening their bodies, which can grow to 31/2 feet long.
Boulder Valley Ranch, Foothills and Eagle trails and prairie dog towns seem to be full of them, said Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks ranger Jerry Katopodes. This month, a trail crew on the Lindsay open space property south of Boulder saw a rattlesnake, he said. And last weekend, someone reported a very large bull snake on the Chautauqua Trail.
People who run into snakes that look like rattlers, but are more than four feet long, should know they are probably looking at a non-venomous bull snake, Katopodes said. It is sometimes tricky to distinguish between bulls and rattlers, since bulls can shake their tail in the grass to sound like their venomous counterpart.
"Sometimes they're mean as a bull, other times they're just giving you a bunch of bull," he said.
In any case, the only injuries people typically get around bull snakes are those they acquire while running away and tripping, or running into trees.
Nationally, about 15,000 dogs and cats are bitten by poisonous snakes each year.
Walkers and their dogs who encounter actual rattlers should do their best to avoid them. Most typically, dogs get bitten on the nose, while sniffing the snakes. That can cause the nasal passage to swell shut. If the rattler manages to inject its venom, the dog can go into shock and show serious bruising.
Once a dog is bitten, owners should get it to an animal hospital, calmly and quickly.
"The big problem is the infection from the dirty mouth of the rattlesnake," said Irene Takahashi, a veterinarian at the Animal Clinic at Table Mesa.
Takahashi treats almost a dog a year on average for rattlesnake bites. She hears most often of dogs getting bitten at Boulder Valley Ranch.
"I'd say that if you hear of rattlesnake sightings in the area, don't even take them there," she said.
After Klein and Alexandra had their run-in with the rattlesnake on the Wonderland Trail, Klein headed back down the trail. Along the way, she passed four other parties, warning each one of what she saw.
They all thanked her for the tip, and put their dogs on leashes.
"It's just one of those things you are oblivious to until you come across one," she said.
Venom slithers in the prairie grass