I scrambled to sit up, my gloved hands slipping on the frozen mud. I shoved Titan to the side,
ignoring the burning pain in my shoulder from the fall.
“Emily!” I yelled, my eyes frantically searching the ground to my left.
The mother had successfully dragged the little girl nearly ten feet away from the brush. They
were both tangled together on the ground.
Emily was completely hysterical. Her face was flushed bright red, her small body shaking with
violent, uncontrollable sobs. She was clutching her pink jacket tight against her chest, her knees
pulled up to her chin.
The mother was frantically running her hands all over her daughter’s face, her neck, her arms.
“Did it bite you? Did it get you? Emily, look at Mommy! Did it bite you?!” the mother was
screaming, her voice completely broken with panic.
“I’m okay! I’m okay!” Emily choked out between gasps for air.
I let out a breath that I felt like I had been holding for an eternity. The kid was safe. She was
terrified, bruised, and dirty, but she was entirely out of the strike zone.
But the nightmare wasn’t over.
I immediately whipped my head around to find the snake.
It was recoiling. The heavy, thick body was slithering rapidly backward into the deep, dry brush
of the oak trees, seeking the safety of the dark undergrowth.
Its terrifying rattle was still vibrating loudly, a harsh, metallic warning that echoed across the
sudden silence of the paralyzed crowd. But it was retreating. The threat to the public was
moving away.
I didn’t care about chasing it. I didn’t care about catching it.I only cared about my partner.
Titan was standing right next to me. His hackles were still fully raised, making him look twice his
normal size. He was barking furiously at the bushes, the deep, booming sound vibrating
through my chest cavity.
“Titan! Here! Front!” I commanded, my voice shaking with a terrifying realization.
He had taken the strike. I saw the snake hit him.
If those fangs had pierced his skin, if that venom was currently pumping through his
bloodstream, I had less than thirty minutes to get him to a specialized veterinary emergency
center before his organs started to shut down.
And we were at least forty minutes away from the nearest K9 trauma clinic.
Titan immediately snapped his attention back to me. He spun around and sat perfectly in front
of my boots, his tail wagging slightly. He looked completely normal. He looked like he was
waiting for a treat for a job well done.
But dogs, especially working dogs like Malinois, have an incredibly high threshold for pain. The
adrenaline surging through his system could easily mask the agony of a venomous bite.
I dropped to my knees right in front of him. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely
undo the metal clasp of my heavy winter gloves. I ripped them off with my teeth and threw
them onto the grass.
“Hold still, buddy. You gotta hold still for me,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion.
I grabbed his muzzle gently but firmly, tilting his large head up toward the flat gray light of the
sky.
I looked into his deep brown eyes. They were wide and alert, but his pupils weren’t dilated. That
was a good sign. No immediate signs of shock.
But I had to find the biteI started at his nose. I ran my bare hands rapidly over his snout, pressing firmly into the short
fur, feeling for any wetness, any swelling, any abnormal heat.
“Good boy, Titan. Good boy,” I kept muttering, mostly to calm myself down.
I checked his lips. I pulled back his heavy jowls, inspecting his gums. They were a healthy, bright
pink. No paleness. No bleeding.
I moved down to his neck. I unclipped his thick leather duty collar and tossed it aside. I dug my
fingers deep into the thick, dense fur around his throat. Malinois have a double coat, incredibly
thick around the neck specifically to protect them from bites during apprehension.
If the snake had hit him there, the fur might have stopped the fangs from reaching the skin.
I felt nothing. No puncture wounds. No blood. No flinching from Titan as I pressed hard against
his muscles.
My heart was pounding against my ribs like a jackhammer. I was sweating through my thermal
base layers despite the freezing temperature.
I remembered the sound of the impact. The heavy smack.
It hit his shoulder.
I moved my hands down to his chest and his left shoulder. He was wearing his heavy, ballisticrated patrol harness. It was made of thick Cordura nylon, designed to stop a knife blade or a
low-caliber bullet.
As I ran my bare hand over the rough black fabric of the harness, my fingertips brushed against
something wet.
I froze.
I pulled my hand back and looked at my fingers.
They were coated in a thick, sticky, pale-yellow fluidIt smelled awful. It had a strange, musky, almost metallic odor that instantly made the hairs on
the back of my neck stand up.
It was venom. The snake had dumped a massive, lethal dose of venom directly onto my dog.
Panic seized my chest again. I grabbed the heavy plastic buckles of Titan’s harness and snapped
them open, frantically pulling the heavy vest over his head.
I threw the vest onto the grass.
“Okay, Titan. Let me see. Let me see,” I breathed heavily.
I visually inspected his bare left shoulder. The fur was slightly matted where the venom had
seeped through the edges of the harness.
I leaned in close, ignoring the danger, practically pressing my nose into his fur to look for the
tiny, deadly pinpricks of the fangs.
I used both hands to aggressively part the fur down to the skin.
I checked every single square inch of his left shoulder. Then his right shoulder. Then his chest.
Then his front legs.
Nothing.
The skin was perfectly intact. There was no swelling. There were no puncture marks. There was
no blood.
The thick, ballistic nylon of his patrol vest had taken the absolute brunt of the strike. The snake’s
fangs had embedded into the tough fabric, dumping the deadly venom onto the outside of the
harness instead of into my partner’s bloodstream.
He wasn’t bitten. He was safe.
The overwhelming wave of relief that crashed over me was so intense that my vision actually
blurred for a second. My knees felt weak.