Lets talk sense about scent!
How many times has this happened to you!?
You're hiking the trail with your favorite hiking partner when suddenly, a wild, rubber snake appears!
Terrifying, right?
Not exactly. A toy is a toy, and frankly, unless your dog decides to eat it and ends up at the vet for an entirely different reason, it isn't going to hurt anything.
More importantly though, it isn't going to teach anything either. Dogs aren't dumb. The smell of rubber or plastic is nothing like the smell of a live, organic animal, and your dog knows the difference instantly.
Don't train with toys. Simple as that.
To understand why scent is everything in avoidance training, it helps to appreciate just how remarkable a dog's nose really is.
Dogs have up to 300 million scent receptors compared to our puny 5 to 6 million, and the part of the brain dedicated to processing smell is proportionally far larger in dogs than in humans. This isn't a small difference, it's a different world entirely.
Dogs are routinely trained to detect chemical changes in the human body, distinguish a human tooth from an animal tooth, and even identify cancer before it becomes life-threatening. The nose is how they experience everything around them.
When it comes to avoidance training, smell isn't just a factor it's the whole ballgame.
There is simply no shortcut around it.
Using dead snakes to train or reinforce training
It should come as no surprise that we strongly oppose this practice.
Here at Get Rattled, we are a snake-positive group of people. We exist because of our genuine admiration for these animals, and we work tirelessly to change perspectives and shed positive light on our native reptilian wildlife.
Snakes play a vital role in the ecosystem, and we believe that effective dog training should benefit everyone involved, including the snakes.
We fully understand that most people don't share our affection for them, and that's okay.
But we will never condone the killing or abuse of any animal in the name of dog training, and it is not something we will ever be a part of.
Beyond the ethics, there's a straightforward practical reason to avoid this approach; it simply doesn't work.
Blood introduces a level of complexity that completely undermines the training process. The scent of blood is highly stimulating to a dog and will override avoidance conditioning, no matter how solid that training may be.
We have heard enough stories to say with confidence: do not try this.
It is also worth noting that snakes retain the ability to bite for a period of time after death, making handling a freshly killed snake genuinely dangerous. There is no version of this that ends well.
Snake Avoidance Training
Many trainers conduct avoidance training using non-venomous species like gopher snakes and bullsnakes.
While this can produce results, it circles back to something critical; dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell, and they know the difference.
In our experience, a significant number of dogs will apply their training broadly to all snakes, but many others will only associate it with the rattlesnakes they trained on.
We've watched dogs come through our program and perform flawlessly every time we work with them, only to turn around and walk right up to one of our gopher snakes as if it's something completely unrelated - because to them, it is!
This tendency is especially pronounced in pointer breeds.
There is no substitute for the real thing when it comes to scent.
A dog trained on a rattlesnake learns to recognize that smell, and that recognition is what could save its life in the field.
We aren't interested in shortcuts, because frankly, your dog's safety isn't a place for them.
Consideration when choosing an avoidance provider
Demand for rattlesnake avoidance training is high, and while we wish we could accommodate everyone, we recognize that isn't always possible.
If you are evaluating other providers, we encourage you to do your homework.
Ask about their process, their successes, and their failures. Ask how they handle their animals. Most importantly, verify that they are working with live, healthy rattlesnakes.
Everything we have covered on this page comes back to that one non-negotiable, and any provider worth trusting will be able to answer that question without hesitation.
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