by Janet Farricelli CPDT-KA

Created on: December 20, 2008

With the recently new rattlesnake vaccinations available for dogs today, as an owner, you may still want to teach your dog how to avoid snakes in the first place. Dogs are inquisitive creatures, they sometimes seem to be looking for trouble. As a result, each year many dogs end up bitten by poisonous snakes. While most survive, many will not make it, and this is very unfortunate as dogs can be trained to avoid snakes.

Snake avoidance will not happen over night. As with any form of training it takes time, patience and effort. This form of training should be a must if you live in rattlesnake prone area. Snake avoidance also comes handy if you bring your dog along on your hiking trips and camping.

Some trainers may suggest you use a shock collar to reprimand the dog as he approaches the snake. While this may appear cruel to those against electronic collars, this method has high success rates and it effectively conditions the dog not to go close to any snake. A small shock after all is much better than a fatal bite from a Western Diamond back!

However, there are other effective methods that do not require such drastic measures. For those that prefer positive reinforcement training, calling your dog to you every time he seeks a snake and offering a reward may cause the dog to avoid snakes by focusing more on you. To effectively work, however, you must have a very food oriented dog and offer high value rewards.

While no method can be 100% effective, taking your dog to specialized training centers that provide snake proof training to dogs may be a good investment. These training sessions usually consist of exposing dogs safely to real rattlesnakes so to be effective. The training will usually stick in the dog's mind for quite some time. The drawback is that the training may need refreshed every now and then, but a big plus factor is the fact that because they dogs will be dealing with real snakes, these teachings are more productive than teaching to stay away from dead snakes or fake plastic ones.

While you may not be able to train your dog to recognize the poisonous snake specimens from the non poisonous ones, at least by avoiding ALL types of snakes you lower the chances of your dog getting into trouble. Unfortunately nothing can be done to make your dog absolutely reliable in avoiding snakes. The best deal therefore, is to simply keep your dog leashed at all times and under close supervision. Same policy we use with walking with our children after all....

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