spider bite on dog (Bloomington, Greenfield: crawl space, university, living)

[shandi13]

Hello. I took my 7 yr old Golden Retriever to the vet today due to a sore on his neck. There was no obvious entry wound and no punctures could be seen. However the sore is swollen, red on the outer part with a black center and is oozing. The vet said this could be an allergic reaction to numerous things and could possibly be an insect bite such as a spider. He treated it with a strong shot of antibiotics as well as a prescription of antiobiotic pills and an ointment. My concern is could this possibly be a broown recluse spider bite? Do we have those in northern indiana? I am not sure what other insects would cause necrosis which appears to be what is happening in the center, black area of the sore. I have 3 kids in addition to 2 dogs and a cat and am concerned of what could have done this. If any one has any thoughts on this please let me know.

[ischyros]

They do exist in Indiana but mostly southern Indiana. They aren't really native to anywhere north of around Bloomington or so. That's not to say they don't exist in northern Indiana, but are quite rare. Also, as the name suggests, brown recluse spiders keep away from people if at all possible. They like dry, dark places, wood piles, garages, crawl spaces. They also are not aggressive and bites are very rare. This is from a University of California-Riverside article about the brown recluse spiders. "One amazing story is an 8th grade teacher in Oklahoma checking up on his students avidly collecting material by some loose bricks around a flagpole on an insect collecting trip. In about 7 minutes, 8 students collected 60 brown recluses, picking them all up with their fingers and not one kid suffered a bite. An even more amazing story is that of a woman in Lenexa, Kansas who collected 2,055 brown recluse spiders in 6 months in 1850s-built home. This family of 4 has been living there 8 years now and still not one evident bite." These stories were originally reported in a 2002 issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology. So this doesn't answer your question as to what possibly bit your dog, but maybe it will help calm your fears of it being a brown recluse.

[missik999]

I worked at a clinic in Greenfield a couple of years ago where we treated two patients who had brown recluse spider bites. The bites are very distinctive because of the necrotic area in the middle of the bite.

We did some research then to see how rare the spiders were in Indiana, most reported bites and sightings were in southern Indiana but a few were in other parts of the state.