A hero dog put his own life at stake when he helped save his owner during a vicious rattlesnake attack.
Marley, a 7-year-old Labrador retriever came to the rescue of his owner Alex Loredo at his family home in San Diego.
Loredo, 18, was doing laundry recently when he suddenly heard rattling underneath a table, a foot away from him. There was a rattlesnake there that was ready to strike. “It was really loud,” he said.
“Before I could even turn, Marley had run out the door, pushed me out of the way, and gotten in between the snake and me,” Loredo continued. “My heart just dropped. My first thought was, ‘Oh no, I’m going to lose my best friend.'”
The rattlesnake bit Marley twice, “one on his tongue and the other his neck” after he stepped in to protect his owner. After the snake left, Loredo and his mother rushed Marley to the hospital.
“It was complete panic,” he said. “My heart was racing, and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. To be completely honest, I thought he was just going to die in the car.”
Marley was given a few doses of antivenom and spent two days in an animal hospital before returning home to recover fully. Two weeks after his homecoming, Marley is now his playful self again. “That’s the longest I’ve ever been away from him, so it was a really sad experience for me,” Loredo said.
“Marley is no longer in danger but suffers nerve damage on his tongue and jaw and will require medication and weekly therapy visits,” Loredo wrote on a GoFundMe created for the dog’s medical expenses.
