To save dogs, woman spends thousands

ODESSA - It's been a rough couple of days for an Odessa woman and her three dogs.

Sunday night, the dogs were out playing in the backyard. Vicki Stahler said they looked like they were hunting for lizards. But within a few minutes, the dogs started acting funny.

"They started barking and running back and forth here. So I went through the pool cage and walked over here and that's when I heard it, the rattle."

An 8-inch pygmy rattlesnake was sitting coiled up. It had just bitten all three dogs.

"I started checking their faces and I saw blood on her face," Stahler recalled.

First she checked Angel, her 11-year-old female. Bailey and Aspen had puncture marks too.

Vicki grabbed her butterfly net to trap the snake. Then she got her shovel out and killed it.

She rushed all of the canine victims to the vet, where she got another shock. They had no animal antivenin.

Dr. Neil Shaw from Florida Veterinary Specialists told FOX 13 there's a big shortage.

"There's a significant shortage of antivenin right now for pets," he explained. "There is a human antivenin that is available. The challenge is, it's extremely, extremely expensive."

He's not kidding -- each vial is about $2,000. So when Vicki saw her vet bill, she was stunned.

"When I looked down I was like, 'Ah, does that say $6,000?' She said, 'Yeah.'"

But what could she do -- pay the money, or let her dogs die?

Vicki didn't think twice. And now Bailey, Angel, and Aspen are doing well.

But she's letting other pet owners know it will be an expensive trip to the vet.

Dr. Shaw says they've seen a lot of snakebites in pets lately. Florida Veterinary Services is caring for two dogs right now with bites.

From now until October is breeding season for snakes. Plus, with the rain we've been getting, the snakes are coming out.

The animal antivenin cost about $860, which is not cheap in itself. But the human version is more than twice as expensive.

Vets have been told the World Health Organization decided to stop making the animal antivenin because they need to make more human antivenin.

There is a rattlesnake vaccine for dogs. But Dr. Shaw said Florida snakes were not used to make the vaccine, so he says it's useless to animals here.