To Young for Snake Training

[Firstdog]

We are having an avoidance training in ID this weekend. One of the people I am stationed with has a puppy that he is thinking about taking for some hunts this year. The puppy is 3.5 months, but will be 6 by the time he starts hunting him. I told him to get the puppy on birds as soon as possible. If he is going to do that, he wants to have the puppy avoidance trained first. Is the puppy to young right now? He is worried it will impact other training. I don't think it would.

[snips]

I would wait to 6-7 months old.

[phermes1]

We're having a snake clinic next weekend and the guy doing it requires each dog be 6 months old and at least 20 lbs.

[gonehuntin']

I'm with Brenda. I, personally, wouldn't put a dog through snake training before it was broken out on the collar. The dog will wear an ecollar all it's life so I want to create no negative perceptions.

[bossman]

Its unanimous so far...Wait...Too much could go wrong.

[birdhunter2424]

We had our clinic when my pup was 8 months and I elected to wait till next year for all the same reasons. Better to wait then to push to hard to soon.

[kninebirddog]

When the e collar fits they are getting done....which for us is about the 4 month old - 6 months old stage we have a very direct method where the entire experience is between the dog and the snake and nothing else

Things i make sure of is the 1 the pup is very comfortable with the check cord and that the stiff stimulation is related entirely to the snake sight sound and smell. when done this way the dog/pup is not relating the stimulation to the collar but it thinks that mean ole snake bit it

I would much rather have my pups bit by the collar then a snake any day and I have yet to have any issues with the e collar when the snake avoidance is done correctly and when the snake avoidance is done do not do it in the area where you are training and when you are done with the avoidance session put the dog up.

if a dog any age is not comfortable with the check cord i will not proceed with that dog i will have the owners come back at another time once they have their dog happy on a long line

[gonehuntin']

K-9 has a LOT more experience with snakes than I do, thank God. She's the lady for that type of training. She even has a pet snake for this. I always error on the side of caution with the collar. But, like K-9, if you live around a lot of snakes (I don't), it very well may save that pups life by breaking it early. I'd sure be hesitant to do it at four months, but K-9 works with a slug of pups all the time and knows.

All that being said, if you're not around a lot of snakes, I'd error toward the cautious approach. I lived and ran a kennel in the Burley area of Idaho for years, and never saw a snake all the years I was there.

[kninebirddog]

I do believe the method is very important and that the entire process as I have said before is related to the snake and only the snake not bushes bags or anything else. we do our snake out in the open and bring the dog across down wind where the dog can scent the snake and i will allow the dog to go investigate the snake we try and have the snake agitated so that when the dog starts to get to close that the snake will start to rattle. then when the dog is totally fixed on the snake and is going in for the sniff it out that is the point where the dog is hit with a high stimulation. I will give a tug in a get away direction from the ecollar and will at like i am checking the pup out and basically reward the dog for getting away from the snake and then we go for a walk
i then will try and bring the dog from the upwind direction to the snake after it is walking around this time we will try and get the snake to rattle and if the dog tries to go back and check it out again That mean ole snake will get them again. Then we walk off and then come back across from the downwind direction once the dog hits scent i would say 9 out of 10 will want not want anything to do with the snake

I do not recommend anyone just going out catching rattlesnakes and milking and defanging them they are dangerous, I leave that fun to Bob
on pups we will do rechecks when they get older but I am surprised at how many remember to stay away from Mr Buzz Stick

there are a couple others that do snake avoidance around us and I would not use their method on my dogs much less my pups.
There is one guy that will snake avoidance train at sports shows ....I watched him one year traumatize a vizsla the poor dog was afraid of the bales of hay and strange people by the time he was done.