Inside Dog And Cat Bites: Risks, Treatment, And Prevention

What Are Common Animal Bites You Have Treated?

A quiet puncture on your dog’s side can look harmless while muscle and vessels are torn beneath the skin. We take you inside real bite emergencies to show how vets read the clues, from housemate scuffles to copperhead strikes, and why the first decisions you make at home can change the outcome. Mike LoSasso, DVM, shares decades of emergency insights on hidden tissue damage, infection risk, and the moments when waiting is the most dangerous choice.

We break down the most common scenarios: dogs biting dogs, cats fighting over territory, and those deceptively small wounds that seed deep infections. You’ll learn why canine skin mobility hides internal trauma, when we avoid immediate sutures and use bandages to protect compromised tissue, and why ear lacerations look terrifying but often bleed far more than they harm. For cat owners, we map where abscesses tend to form and how behavior predicts bite location, along with the red flags that signal it’s time to get help.

Snake season brings its own challenges. We explain how to spot a copperhead bite, what makes venom doses vary, and why antivenom is not only the best way to halt swelling but also the most effective pain relief. We also cover rabies realities: low risk in vaccinated pets here, but strict reporting and quarantine rules still apply, and global numbers remain sobering. Walk away with practical pet safety steps, smarter first aid choices, and a clearer sense of when to get to the ER fast.

If this conversation helped you feel more prepared, follow and subscribe for future episodes, share it with a pet-loving friend, and leave a quick review so others can find the show.

To learn more about Frisco Emergency Pet Care visit:
https://www.FriscoEmergencyPetCare.com
Frisco Emergency Pet Care 
11201 Preston Road 
Frisco, Texas 75033 
469-287-6767 

Transcript

Welcome And Focus On Bites

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast, your trusted source for expert insight into emergency veterinary medicine. Hosted by Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care, this podcast brings you essential information to help protect the health and safety of your dogs and cats. Serving North Dallas with 24-7 emergency and critical care, the team at Frisco Emergency Pet Care is here when every second counts. Now, let's begin.

Most Common Bite Scenarios

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Animal bites happen fast, and knowing what's most common and what to do next can make all the difference. Welcome everyone. I'm Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer back in the studio with Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care. Dr. Lasasso, it's always great to be with you and to learn from you.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Always good to see you, Julie. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So, what are some of the most common animal bites that you have treated in your practice?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Well, the most common animal bites are typically among housemates, and so they are typically the patients that we're already seeing. We see um dogs biting other dogs, we see cats occasionally biting other cats, generally, those cats are actually free roaming, and they are most commonly interacting with an intact male in his territory, and and and we deal with that way after the fact. Once an abscess is formed, an infection under the skin because cat mouths are nasty and those teeth are like needles, and you don't ever want bacteria injected under your skin. Every now and then we will see a cat that's attacked by a dog. Um, the other, the only wildlife attacks that we see here with any kind of regularity. Well, let's get ready to start out, is uh is snake bite. So we do see those. We didn't we didn't talk about those in the in the pregame.

What To Do Right Away

SPEAKER_00 2:02

And what should a pet owner do immediately if their animal is bitten?

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Well, the the bite wounds are are among the most variable problem that we see. Sometimes it is a nothing but a scratch. And I have seen those, and the advice there is you know, good news is that we don't need to do anything, you don't need medical intervention. Keep this clean, it's gonna heal just fine. The challenge that we have with NL bites is they're all considered dirty, right? So, number one, don't break up a dog fight with your body, right? Especially with your hands. Broomstick, something else, try to get them yelling at them, pulling on them, but with with redirected aggression, even dogs that wouldn't normally bite you, they are in the heat of battle and people get bitten, and they're serious in it, and it hurts, and it will affect you for a long time. The other thing is, at least in the state of Texas, is that any animal bite that is treated by a physician needs to be reported to the Department of Health. And then you're dealing with rabies quarantine situations, even if your dog is vaccinated, they still have to be quarantined after a fashion. Exactly what that look like kind of varies from city to city. Um, but if we've got a bite wound, you've got a housemate that's bitten another one, um, then we absolutely need to see

Hidden Damage Under The Skin

SPEAKER_02 3:25

the one, at least the one that's injured. The the challenge can be because dog skin is really, really mobile, and you'll notice this that you can grab a whole handful of your dog's skin, especially if you're over the thorax, over the chest, and you grab a handful, you can scrunch their skin up a lot. It moves around quite a bit. Human skin doesn't do that. You try to do that on you, and it's gonna hurt. Um, but what that means is that sometimes we'll see a bite, and the the canine teeth, the big fang teeth, will penetrate the skin and there'll be a puncture wound, and that's all you see on the outside. But what you don't realize is that because that skin has moved around the whole time that tooth was in it, that there is a tremendous amount of damage done underneath. And sometimes we see the muscles between ribs ripped apart, but the only thing you see from the outside is um is that one puncture wound, uh, abdominal wall hernias where the abdominal wall is actually disrupted, and so the only thing holding the intestines in is the skin. So, I mean, they can be very, very serious, and I think people tend to think that dog bites aren't that serious. Those are generally people that have never been bitten by bitten themselves. I mean, I've had part of one of my ears removed by uh by a dog, um, but I was much closer to a serious hospitalization after being bitten by a cat again because of the bacteria that are present in their in their mouths. You know, it's an occupational hazard. It happens. Um we could say that they were both my fault. I think that that's pretty safe. Most of the time when veterinary personnel are bitten, it's because they weren't paying enough attention or had put themselves in a in a position, a place they shouldn't have been. So uh I'm sorry too, but I learned lessons from both of those, right? Happy to say. Um haven't been bitten since, but um, but yeah, it happens. And we do see dogs. It's obviously not be obvious, it is usually much worse when there is a large size discrepancy, and we see a lot of those. Um, you know, the the little schnauzer that's grabbed by the Labrador or the German Shepherd, the Great Dane, that has got multiple rib fractures and punctured lungs. I mean, that happens. That generally doesn't happen when you're going dane on Dane. Um, you know, that then we generally end up with with mostly skin wounds. For a long time, veterinarians have tried to close those up and we place drain tubes and then realize that when all that skin is torn, one of the other things that happen is that the blood vessels that go to that skin gets torn and that skin loses its blood supply. And so we do a fantastic job of saying, look, this looks amazing. I put this huge laceration back together. Um,

Treating Large And Small Wounds

SPEAKER_02 6:24

yeah, it took took 30 stitches, but it looks it looks pretty good, and they come back in three days, and the whole thing has come apart because the skin that you sutured actually has turned black and has died because it didn't have a blood supply. So we generally don't sew as many of these big lacerations as we used to if there's a lot of really serious soft tissue disruption. We are as as often as not we'll try to bandage those and treat those as open wounds uh for two or three days before we even consider trying to put those back together. Really depends. It really depends on the severity. You know, if you come in and sometimes I'll see the really bloody ones are when one dog bites another dog's ear, right? And you've got a tiny, you've got a tiny little V notch cut out of the very tip, it's not a significant wound, but ears bleed, and dogs that have had their ears bitten tend to shake their heads. So people like, I've got blood on my ceiling, I've got blood on walls, there's it looks like it looks like it's all over my house. And because you can make an immense mess with a very, very small amount of blood, just like you can with a very small amount of red paint. Um people get very concerned about blood loss when in fact it is almost insignificant. We don't worry about uh about that. But uh ears are also really hard to try to suture and stop winning with suture. So yeah, we see all kinds of problems with specifically with dog bites.

Cat Bites And Abscess Patterns

SPEAKER_02 8:04

With cat bites, like I said, the big thing is the formation of abscesses. If you've got two intact males fighting, they're both in that fight to win. So you generally end up seeing abscesses on the face because that's how they are fighting, that they are tooth to tooth and bite each other on the face. When we have a female or a neutered male, generally they're bitten right above the tail because they're trying to get out, they just walk out of that territory and they kind of get tagged on the way out.

Copperhead Season And Identification

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Um, and then the other serious, the really serious one that we have coming up, it's uh it's about copperhead season in this part of the world. So we're fortunate that in Frisco, in our locale, we are on the east side of Lake Dallas. So we see mostly copperheads. Copperheads are a venomous species and they can cause quite a bit of damage, but they are not, as a general rule, nearly as scary and difficult to treat as the rattlesnakes that are on the west side of the lake or the water moxins that we certainly see in this whole area.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

And how do you treat the more dangerous snake bites?

Snakebite Variables And Antivenom

SPEAKER_00 9:14

And are there times where you the owner did not know that they were bit by a snake until later?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Oh, it absolutely happens. Uh, you know, they're like, Yeah, I heard him yell out, and and that was an hour ago, and now that foot's really swollen. You can generally tell a snake bite. Um, generally, you've got a couple of very a couple of really small puncture wounds that you don't really appreciate are punctures because snake teeth are small and they're super sharp. Um, but you do see a couple of spots that have got some black blood and it's less than an inch apart in the middle of what's now a really swollen area. Uh snakes, even copper heads, there's a lot of variability there too, because there are there are factors. We we know the factors involved with the dog, right? So we know how big the dog is, and we know where on the dog he was bitten, as a general rule. There are a lot of snake factors that will complicate treating a snake bite. Frequently, we don't know a lot of those species of snake. A lot of times we do have a good idea there. Um age of snake, when it last ate, why it bit, all of those things kind of factor into how much venom was there. If if the snake had recently eaten, there's probably not a lot of venom left for a defensive bite. So we tend to see less venom there. People are under the impression, or it's kind of an old wives' tale, that young snakes are more venomous than old snakes. That's not true. Snake venom is snake venom, but younger snakes have maybe less control, they tend to be a little bit more impulsive, so they don't control the amount of venom they release. And in a defensive bite, the snake really doesn't want to give up a lot of venom. It's expensive to make, right? It's it's hard on the snake's body. So you don't want to use a lot of venom in a defensive bite. If you're just warning a dog away because he's got his nose to the ground and he's coming closer to you, then you don't want to use a lot of venom. If, on the other hand, you get stepped on, they tend to give more when they think that they're really defending themselves. And in the situation that we call a terminal bite, that typically is where a dog has picked a snake up by the center of his body and is swinging him around until he dies. Well, if that snake can manage to bite on the dog anywhere, he's going to give everything he's got, um, thinking he's gonna save himself. He's not, but he'll try to take you with him. So, yeah, we see all of that. And sometimes if it's a dry bite, we don't need antivenom. Um, but in in most cases, antivenom is the most effective drug to not only stop the swelling, but it's actually the most effective pain medication we can give.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

And then what about dog bites that are potentially rabid or you know, they're not sure, maybe the animal had rabies, or the dog bites that animal or something else in wildlife.

Rabies Risk And Vaccination

SPEAKER_00 12:15

What steps do you take when the owner comes in with the pet?

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Well, we are we are fortunate that we don't see a lot of wildlife interaction here, although we certainly have rabbit skunks, and there's always a question about the coyotes here in in Collin County. You know, with wild dogs, you certainly have that risk, and we want to make sure that dogs are up to date on their rabies vaccine. Uh, rabies, rabies is a very small problem in domesticated dogs in this country, um, but it is it it is still an important disease. Most people don't realize that 60,000 people die a year of rabies. That we're not aware of it because it doesn't happen in this country, right? That's mostly uh India and in the in the Middle East and some some parts of Africa as well, because there aren't good comprehensive um vaccine programs there. It's not really a priority, although I would think with 60,000 people a year it would be a higher one. Um so we, you know, if we have the other dog, uh, which we almost invariably don't, especially if it's if it's a stray, if it's wildlife people are not picking up that skunk and bringing them in. Um, and I don't blame them, then then it's really uh making sure that they're vaccinated and probably revaccinating uh just to be on the safe side.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Okay, well, Dr.

Closing And Clinic Info

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Lasasso, thank you again for walking us through these scenarios and your experiences. We always appreciate your expertise.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Thank you for listening to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast. To learn more, visit FriscoPetER.com. Call 469-287-6767. Or stop by 11201 Preston Road, Frisco, Texas, 75033. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Frisco Emergency Pet Care is always here when your pet needs us most. Until next time, take care of your pets, and they'll take care of you.