Snakes and dogs

[AK Maule]

New transplant to New Mexico from Alaska here. I have a Karelian Bear Dog that is afraid of nothing. She's gone nose to nose with a full grown grizzly that wandered into camp, then the next day caught a wolverine out in the open on a beach and spent half an hour trying to get it to play with her. But we don't have snakes in Alaska and I'm seriously worried about taking her out and about down here.
Just wondering what precautions I should take to keep her out of snakes.

 

[KurtR]

Get her snake broke. Sure there are some clinics down there

 

[RS_Non-Res]

Trainers use a live stinky poisonous snake in a burlap bag and an electric shock collar (on the dog) turned up to 11. Dog smells snake and gets zapped. Not sure how durable the training is or how specific the snakey smell is.
Also, you might learn that sonoran rat snakes are not rattlesnakes.

 

[Bailer]

Trainers use a live stinky poisonous snake in a burlap bag and an electric shock collar (on the dog) turned up to 11. Dog smells snake and gets zapped. Not sure how durable the training is or how specific the snakey smell is.
Also, you might learn that sonoran rat snakes are not rattlesnakes.

The guy I used defanged a diamondback and put it out in the open. Zapped the shit out of my pup as soon as he went in for a good sniff.

 

[Matthew57]

I did snake aversion training this year. Hoping it works. We don’t have as many as in New Mexico probably but they’re around.

 

[AK Maule]

Thanks guys, I'd never heard of that.

 

[87TT]

I’ve had a couple of dogs done. My lab won’t go near a snake. Sometimes makes a wide detour of the spot the next day.

 

[Sunshine40]

I did snake aversion training with my golden and he got bit by a rattler 3 weeks later so just keep that in mind. In his defense there were kids in the yard and we like to think he was getting himself between the kids and the snake.

Just be careful where you take them and don't fully depend on the training.

 

[7mm-08]

I did snake aversion training annually with the local NAVHDA chapter for five or six years. The gentleman who was in charge of the training program is a commercial breeder and highly respected pointing dog trainer in the Treasure Valley. He never put any of his dogs through that torture and either have I. What I will say is that you should contemplate antivenom for your dog. You have to stay up on frequency of shots, but that's a small price to pay for the extra time it gives you to get a dog to a vet for treatment post-strike. I had a pointing dog dry-struck by a rattlesnake chuckar hunting in the Snake River Canyon, but never a bite that was injected. That's not something you figure out in the field, by the way.

 

[IN2HNTN]

I would recommend rattlesnake antivenom shots in addition to aversion training.

 

[Jason Snyder]

There is some controversy over the efficacy of the rattlesnake vaccines. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

I do the aversion training. Not all dogs are very smart, so the efficacy of this varies as well.

 

[yfarm]

This topic has been extensively discussed on this forum, suggest reading that thread. Vets treating bites have offered opinions on the vaccine.

Snakebit dog - vaccine PSA​