16ga.com ~ View topic

Member Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 57 Location: Newport.OR

Been gone awhile but saw a post on losing a dog to a snake bite. There was follow up talk of snake proofing dogs but no specifics on how handlers/owners go about doing this. I now hunt where there is the possibility of snake bites (in southern Mich. we had massasauga rattlers on the farm but only one bite in 50 years). Oregon presents a different set of circumstances. What training methods are employed?

Its done in a pit by using a snake and electric shock and works well. I've had it done when hunting out west. Not cruel and a dog never will go near a snake again. Get ahold of a local trainer and they can prolly turn you on to one of the clinics held generally at a training facility. Beats watching a good dog die. Few things worse than that Sad

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

Never heard of that---if it works it would save the dog's curiosity for less lethal encounters Wink

*Last edited by brdhnt on Sat Mar 19, 2011 10:43 am; edited 1 time in total*

Spunky,

Where I hunt in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, snakes are a fact of life. All of my dogs are 'snake broke'. The local bird dog club does it twice a year. The dog is put into a shock collar set on maximum and then led to a snake that is coiled up and rattling. The dog is brought in from down wind so that it can smell, see and hear the snake. The snake has it's mouth sewed shut so that it can strike but cannot bite. When the dog investigates the snake or the snake strikes, the dog is hit with the collar impulse.

The dog is then rested for ten or fifteen minutes and then led to a second snake. This snake has it's rattles taped so that the dog can't hear it and the dog is led into it from upwind. When the snake strikes, the collar is hit.

As good as this is, it needs to be combined with the use of the snake bite preventative shots. I know of too many dogs that were snake broke that still got hit. My vet has been giving dogs the preventative shots since it first became available and is up to 18 dogs that have survived snake bites including one of his own. He saw his GSP get hit by a big rattler last year. She was climbing a bank with a nose-full of quail scent and a rattler that was lying on the bank hit her in a rear leg. She had a knot the size of a walnut for about three days and 'nursed' that leg for about a week but was hunting the next day. He says that this is what he has seen in most of the cases and that there is no permanent nerve or muscle damage from the bite. Another friend had lost a Visula to a big snake a couple of years ago. The dog was retrieving a bird and the snake got her on the neck. He had his dogs given the preventative (they are also snake broke) and last year one of the pups of the dog he lost got hit almost exactly like her mother did. She was retrieving a bird and the snake got her in the neck. One of it's fangs on the second strike (there were three fang holes) got hung up in her collar and when she ran back to him she dragged the snake with her. After he killed the snake he took her to the vet who kept her for observations for 24 hours. She too had the knot and some swelling but no permanent damage.

On one of our hunting leases we killed 16 Western Diamondbacks last year and 6 of those in one day so we are very wary of them. I have never personally had a dog get hit but know of too many others that have.

Hope this helps.

TMB
________
Milf Videos

Member Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 57 Location: Newport.OR

Thanks for the explaination. Eastern Oregon apparently has lots of snakes and I want my partner protected should I choose to hunt there. This is all new to me.