This thread was going to be "Hiking with Dogs: Dog Mt., Columbia Gorge, WA"

But I chickened out. I didn't bring Bodhi with me. I felt so guilty. He was sniffing my pack and boots. I swear he knew I was going without him. But people lately have reported rattlesnakes on the trail. Bodhi's prey drive is so strong, that I was sure he be bitten if we saw one, even if he was on a leash.

When he walk in the woods, we see garter snakes all the time. Bodhi pounces on them. He sees them before I do, and "Leave it!" doesn't work for him if it's alive. The other night in the semi darkness he found a baby bird trying to fly. It was all I could do to get it away from him.

Do any of you (especially Colorado husky people who hike in rattlesnake country) have ideas on how to get him to not go after snakes or prey?

Dog Mt. today without Bodhi, looking west down the Columbia River

jalepeno wrote:

Do any of you (especially Colorado husky people who hike in rattlesnake country) have ideas on how to get him to not go after snakes or prey?

In all the trails I have hiked in Colorado, I have never crossed paths with a snake. And I hope I never will!

As far as trying to call him off when he wants to go after that snake, I think Kristina gave a couple of references that she used to get Mickey to the point where she can call him off mid-chase!

The book she referenced is: Control Unleashed

And the training methods she referenced is: http://www.preydrivedogtraining.com/

The above method is also modeled after: Natural Dog Training by Kevin Behan

i hate hiking with out the dogs, they SOOO know when i go with out them to. i had to sneak all my stuff out of the house when i did pikes peak!

as far as snakes in CO yes we have them, but where we hike they are not there. Eddy will not hike below a certain elevation once the summer starts to avoid finding any snakes, sooo we have not crossed any yet. not sure i could keep sierra from trying to eat one. i would have to see it way in advance to make sure she did not see it.

The snakes here seem to be mostly a Front Range thing up to 9,000' on occasion. I have personally never seen one on trail because I actively avoid that terrain. But that's an advantage we have out here, we can just skip the "lowland" trails and hike where they typically aren't. I can't even say I've seen a garter snake on trail (although my mom said they were all over the marshy area we passed through last weekend).

You might check into a statewide veterinary association and ask if they have snake bite statistics for dogs. Then maybe try the universities as well, they might be more likely to have that information. When I took a day long animal first aid/CPR course, it was put on by Red Cross and CSU's veterinary program. They had charts and graphs depicting more dangerous areas, breed mortality numbers, time of day when bites happened and size/approximate age of the offending reptile. Not sure how the Colorado data would relate to Oregon/Washington, but 11:00am to 1:30pm is the worst time window, our hills that rise from valley floors (or the eastern plains and western plateaus) up to 8,000' with sparse tree cover are the more risky areas and bites to the face in larger breeds had a better chance for recovery. Anti-venom was $1,100+ per vial at the time and if I remember correctly, it needs to be given within a couple of hours. And sometimes it may complicate what would have been a normal recovery. Definitely something to look into more.

If I were to stop my dogs from being interested in snakes for safety (the rattlers), it would be a severely aversive approach. Probably joining in one of the hunting clubs around here when they do that training.

If I were to train my dogs to more or less ignore snakes for convenience, I would do what I did to keep them from eating crap they find on the street and in the bushes around Wendy's (you need insanely high value targets to train leave it where it can generalize to moving things, then you need to train in the right environment. I can get by the cats/rabbit/squirrels around here, but put a rabbit or squirrel on trail and it's back to square one). That involved a long line, a choke chain, some bait and about ten days. Not most folks' cup of tea though. I would be interested to hear if anyone here has actually had to deal with training for snakes specifically. This is all just rambling on my end.

Having lived in AZ, Koda has had rattlesnake avoidance training + had the vaccine to help incase he was bit. I'm horrible at explaining things, but they basically condition your dog that snakes = shock. They used a muzzled snake and let the dogs try to bug it and anytime they tried to go at it, they would shock them to imitate a bite... I am not really the best person to share my experience though as Koda was like WTF get away from me to the snake anyways after the first initial shock. It all depends on the trainer you go to and what your dogs reaction is on how everything goes. I would google snake avoidance and see if you can find a class.

how does one muzzle a snake..... would like to see that.

No idea, it was muzzled though! I think they remove the fangs sometimes too.

jbealer wrote:

how does one muzzle a snake..... would like to see that.

I think this is how they do it.

You might be right Len! You have me cracking up!