Snake avoidance training

Nimrod71

Senior Member
I have a method that has worked for me. I started out training beagles to keep them off deer and then added rattle snake training and it work. If you are interested. It is simple and most dog men can work it out.
 

Jake300win

Member
I have a method that has worked for me. I started out training beagles to keep them off deer and then added rattle snake training and it work. If you are interested. It is simple and most dog men can work it out.
Sure! what are you doing? If my dogs run deer and I see it I try to hit them with the collar on a high setting
 

Nimrod71

Senior Member
I use and electric fence charger. I get a rear deer leg with scent gland intact put it in a hardware cloth sleeve that I make and hang it about 30 in. from the floor of the dog pen. I attach a 12 in. square piece of hardware cloth to the wooden floor of the pen. I attach the leads to the hardware cloth. The dogs will go to the leg for a smell and when they step on the floor cloth and their nose touches the leg wire they get shocked. After a few shocks the dogs learn not trail deer. With beagles I would have to retrain them a couple of times a year. Usually, one training would last through hunting season. Beagles are not the smartest of dogs. I have used this for rattler training on my bird dogs and I have not lost a bird dog to a snake.
 

Nimrod71

Senior Member
I forgot to say I replaced the deer leg with a roadkill rattle snake. If you decide to try this method, make sure the rattler is grave yard dead before you pick it up. I cut their heads off before I pick them up, just to make sure.
 

Railroader

Billy’s Security Guard.
A large rat snake with a nasty disposition or a banded watersnake will teach a puppy all he needs to know... ?

Rat snakes are easier to find and catch, but you gotta make sure and get a mean one. Some are pretty docile.

I've never seen a docile water snake.

Just put em somewhere they can't get away from each other, and let that puppy get bit a few times.

He'll avoid snakes like the plague.

This doesn't work on dogs that are grown, or nearly so. Gotta still have his puppy teeth...
 
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Nicodemus

The Recluse
Staff member
When my Heeler puppy was about 3 months old I caught a big oak snake and let her put her nose to it. By the time she got her nose loose from it she had her mind made up that snakes ain`t nothing to play with. Cruel, but a whole lot better than tangling with a big diamondback or any of the other five venomous ones we have around here.
 

Railroader

Billy’s Security Guard.
I don't see it as cruel a bit, @Nicodemus...

I see it as necessary, if a dog's feet are gonna touch dirt in Georgia. Ain't neither critter going to suffer severe damage, the point will be made to the pup, and ain't no fancy pants dog trainer ever come up with anything better... ?
 

Nicodemus

The Recluse
Staff member
I don't see it as cruel a bit, @Nicodemus...

I see it as necessary, if a dog's feet are gonna touch dirt in Georgia. Ain't neither critter going to suffer severe damage, the point will be made to the pup, and ain't no fancy pants dog trainer ever come up with anything better... ?


Yes, it is a very much needed preventive, especially down here. I`ve seen a lot of dogs bitten and more than I like to think about to die from snakebite. I guess I`ve been lucky? because I`ve only lost one dog like that. A Labrador puppy to a coral snake bite back in the mid 70`s. I also have mine vaccinated yearly with the Red Rock vaccine, even though it is not effective against diamondbacks, from what I`ve been told.
 

Nimrod71

Senior Member
I killed a 4 ft. diamond back this afternoon. I was going to the river to cut grass and just pasted Newton store I saw the snake in the middle of the highway. I was going to fast to stop so I passed the snake and turned around and went back. I was over a hundred yds. away from it and it looked like a big limb just lying in the highway. Another car was coming down the highway and swerved to miss it. I stopped in the highway and it turned around and started crawling towards the truck. I let the window down and shot it with my 10-22. A car came up behind me as I was stopped and they passed me in the lane with the snake. I don't think they saw the snake until they passed. They drove on an I pulled off, then they turned around at the store and came back to look at the snake. I headed on to the river and cut the grass. Something told me to put the rifle in the truck.
 

WOODIE13

2023 TURKEY CHALLENGE 1st place Team
We had quite a few of our dogs get bit by rattlesnakes at Lackland AFB and we never lost one, they swole up, skin sloft off, but they made it.

Would think you could put a snake in a wire cage and using an ecollar, juice them on high when they went to approach the cage, but the method Nic and RR covered would work great too
 

2dye4

Senior Member
You may try and contact Matt. He is a dog trainer and may know of someone.
 

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GLS

Classic Southern Gentleman
Both of my Britts have been snake broke numerous times using venomous snakes. EDB, cottonmouths and copperheads. I've used two different trainers. First one was Dr. Bud Calderwood of Alachua, FL. He stopped the training and disposed of his snakes when Florida DNR changed regs on how the snakes could be kept. This was in response to some bozo losing a cobra in S. Fl. Refresher courses were taught by a man from N. Ga. using caged snakes with double walls of screening with venomous snakes contained. I preferred Dr. Bud's method of uncaged snakes. I recall one instance where Abby must have sensed a snake while hunting. She went into a thicket, spun on her heels and hauled out of there, barking. She had never exhibited that conduct before. Two winters ago, we came across a rat snake that had just come out of brumation slowly inching across a trail in the open. Both dogs failed to sense it despite proximity. Scent conditions were good. When exposed to a young copperhead by Dr. Bud, it was the most difficult one for all dogs in the clinic to detect. Gil
 
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