Snake-bit mastiff heals, goes to Westminster Dog Show
NEW YORK >> Whatever got a piece of gentle Titus in the North Carolina brush, it was trouble.
Co-owner Cassandra Carpenter reckons it was a pygmy rattlesnake. Veterinarian Jess Hunter figures it could’ve been a copperhead.
No matter, when Titus’ back left leg turned red, purple and black and suddenly blew up like a tennis ball last March, nobody was dwelling on whether this 3-yearold bullmastiff would someday walk in the Westminster Kennel Club dog ring.
“I thought he was going to lose a leg, or maybe even worse,” Carpenter said. “His show career didn’t mean anything at that point.”
Nearly each of the 2,630 entries at America’s most prestigious pooch pageant is in flawless condition. There’s self-assured Thor the bulldog and fluffy Bono the Havanese, plus a bevy of fancycut poodles, primped Pekingese and elegant borzoi.
Competition begins today with the agility event that’s open to mutts and everyone else. Breed judging for beagles, whippets and the newly welcomed Azawakh in the purebred portion of the show starts Sunday.
Among the rows and rings will be Titus — the one with the dark scar on his ankle.
Just making it this far, considering his episode less than a year ago, was quite a step.
“It could’ve been really bad,” said Carpenter, a longtime vet tech.
She is Titus’ co-owner, breeder and handler from Stuart, Florida, and was visiting one of her mentors when something went terribly wrong. Only a few months after he’d started his show career, too.
Titus had gone out toward some trees and came back fine, or so it appeared. But over the next couple of days, there were problems with the 120-pound, fawncolored dog with the wrinkly face and happy disposition.
“He had a high fever, he wasn’t his usual bright, cheery, happy-go-lucky self. And his thigh started swelling up,” Carpenter said.
As the symptoms quickly got worse, and away from her regular vet, she scrambled to find help. That’s when she connected with “a country vet who I liked and trusted.”
That was Hunter, in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Her initial thought? “His leg looked terrible,” she said. “His leg was pretty gross.”
Over the next several hours, Hunter and vet tech Tonya Waters lanced the wound, cleaned it and put Titus on the road to recovery.
“He started looking better before he left the clinic,” Hunter said.
Said Carpenter: “I thought we’d have to do skin grafts. It looked like someone had come with an ice cream scooper and scooped out some of the skin.”
Despite the injury, Titus never lost his stride. By late last June, he slowly made his way back into the ring. Last November, he posted his biggest victory yet, winning best of breed in the National Dog Show on Thanksgiving Day.