Bee sting

R

romeosangiovese

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Last night I saw a bee on the living room floor wriggling on its back. After tossing it into the neighbour's garden (I'm kidding), I saw Romeo standing and raising his right paw. I'm thinking "why is he showing me appeasement/calming signals?!" then noticed he was holding it higher than he would when he's showing such signals.

A quick check revealed that he was stung by the stupid bee in one of his toe paw pads, probably when he stepped on the bee. He didn't want to put weight on the paw obviously coz it hurt. I removed the sting and soothed him with lots of liver treats and he was running on both feet by the time we went to bed.

The point of my longwinded posts (all of mine tend to be) is to share with you what I did to help my dog. I got this from my home vet book. If anyone has any experience, please let me know. I'm monitoring Romeo for any allergic reaction, etc to the sting.

1. Identify the stinger. From a bee? A wasp? A hornet? Only bees leave their stingers in the flesh I think.

2. Remove the stinger. Don't use a tweezers apparently (I did because I forgot about the book until after I took the stinger out). Use a credit card or fingernail to scrape the stinger out. Apparently if you use a tweezer you might squeeze more venom in. Thankfully I picked the stinger out by what I assume to be the bee's *** skin and not the black sac at the end of the stinger.

3. Get baking soda and some water and make a paste and apply it to the site of the sting. (Thank goodness I bake!!) Leave for a few minutes.

4. Ice the area to numb and relieve pain. (We tried putting his paw in a cup of icy water for abit at a time but he didn't like that as much as putting ice in his water dish and pawing away at it. My dog looooves to paw at water dishes before and after drinking.)

Romeo was fine and didn't seem to be affected by any bee butt venom, BUT if it happens toyou, do check for signs of nausea, vomiting, difficulty in breating, collapsing, any other abnormal signs, or signs of epilepsy because some dogs may be affected more severely (eg. allergies). If so, go to your vet immediately. Doc might also prescribe anti-histamines for your dog if it itches.

I called my vet today who said I should just watch for any swelling, redness, etc and lack of appetite.

Thought I'd share. Only my dog can get stung in his paw. Sigh.
 
Phew!

I'm glad Romeo seems to be doing alright! Thanks for the post! Caliber seems to like to chase flies and such, so this will come in handy for summertime! Keep us posted! :smile2:
 
This is a very good post and maybe we should have it put in the reference file for future use. I'm glad he is ok too!

My previous dog, a sheltie/beagle mix was attacked by a hornets nest. We didn't know that they had built a nest inside of the tree where her tie out was and she was out there barking and set them off. It was terrible! The hornets were embedded in her fur. We hosed her down with water and the things still wouldn't come off of her. We had to pick them out by hand and I rushed her to the vet's office at 8:00 at night. She had to give her a shot - I can't remember of what and gave her some benadryl. Her gums were turning white - not pink and she was getting lethargic from the stings. The point I'm bringing up is that you can somewhat tell if a dog is sick or not but pressing on their gums and seeing what color they turn. If they turn back to pink they are ok but if not, time to take them in. It's kind of like pressing on humans nails and seeing if they turn back to pink which tells you if there is enough oxygen in your blood stream.

Anyway, it was a very scary situation and I'm glad that I was able to get her to the vet in time. Poor girl! I even got stung on the way to the vet, we missed a few and one flew out and stung me in the arm while I was driving! I hate hornets! They keep on stinging!! :mad:
 
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I am glad that he is OK, and thank you for the information. I am going to copy and paste it to my files on my computer. I have a special one for "sheltie health".
 
Yup!! He seems to be doing just fine! His paw pad didn't even swell. I think I got lucky. Might be coz the bee was sort of going to die soon?

Mcguiregirl - oh my goodness!! That's HORRIBLE!!! Kudos to you for doing everything you could for your girl! I hope she recovered quickly! I think your doc administered an antihistamine jab to counter the reaction to the stings.
Good tip on the gums! THANKS!! I must remember that.

BTW, the baking soda in my previous post is meant to neutralize the venom. Forgot to add that bit of info.

In light of this little incident (and yes I tend to be slightly paranoid with Romeo!) I'm gonna make up a doggy first aid kit. If anyone has one, perhaps you could start a thread on it? Otherwise, I'll go dig up info and post it once I've got everything.
 
You can also give them children's benedryl. Ask your vet how much, but you can also give it to them before they have a shot to help with any side effects.
 
Great info on the gums, I'll etch that in my head. Yep had that problem with another boy I had, but a large breed. It was horrible, and I picked them off of him as quickly as I could. He was fine though, and that is a scary situation. They were all hornets, and I had to plead very nicely to the guy next door to burn them out, they were flying right into my dogs.

That poor boy came running and squeeling into the house, laid on his back, and I made certain we gotem all and he was ok. Horrible experience. Glad all the furkids are OK.
 
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