Rattlesnakes - The New Enemy!

Today we took Sidney to rattlesnake avoidance training. Wow, it's hard to hear your baby yelp like that and become so scared, but he passed with flying colors. There are so many rattlers in our area that I feel better knowing that now he will avoid them!

The train in three phases. The first was Sight and Scent recognition. Sidney was very curious about the snake, but he walked right up to it like it was a new chew toy or something. After seeing THAT, I'm so glad he went through the training. If he had met one in our yard or while out on a walk, he would have been bitten for sure! After he was applied the negative stimulus once, he cried and shied away. The handler took him toward the snake a few more times but Sid wanted nothing to do with it.

Phase two was introduction of sound and reinforcement of scent and sight. This rattler was making his scary sounds. Again, more neg reinforcement if Sid reacted with interest or curiosity to the sound. Sid refused to even approach the snake, so they had to bring the snake to him. They needed to teach him that even if the dog is standing next to a human , they still are not safe from the snake.

Phase three was avoiding and alerting. We stood at one end of the field, Sid was on a long lead at the other side, and a HUGE rattler was between us. We had to call him over, the idea being he would come to us while avoiding the snake, and alert us that something bad was there. I guess some dogs will run the other way rather than go to their owner, but Sid made a very wide circle to his right and came right to us, ears back and trembling.

After they removed his training collar, one of the trainers held him close and soothed him, and put his front paws in a shallow wading pool and cupped water onto him to sooth and calm him. After a couple minutes you could tell he calmed down and relaxed. Now he's taking a nap.

The training was done by Patrick Callaghan, and he does sessions all over California. www.PatrickCallaghan.com

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Comment by Geri & Sidney on July 20, 2008 at 7:09pm: Thanks everyone. We went on a three mile hike today with rattler warning signs posted along the trail. Luckily all the snakes were napping, but I felt better knowing that if we startled one, Sid would let us know to get away!

Comment by Steve on July 20, 2008 at 3:07pm: Thanks for sharing Sidney's experience. It's so important to train our loved ones (animals) with what to do with all kinds of dangerous situations around us and I'm glad you found a good trainer.

Comment by James on July 20, 2008 at 5:12am: I wonder if I can find that down here in Florida. We have the occasional pygmi rattler. I was wondering how they trained for that. Thanks for the details!

Comment by Laurie on July 19, 2008 at 6:58pm: Thank God I don't live in an area where rattlesnakes are common. That had to be a tough thing to do.

Comment by Sam Tsang on July 19, 2008 at 5:49pm: Thanks for sharing! That was very insightful :) We had a snake encounter once, Mocha and Vienna were both clueless and completely missed the snake, even though it was 3 inches away from them, I guess the color disguise and holding still worked for the snake :)