The Snake School Report: Travis The Goofy Dog almost flunked Rattlesnake school. The trainer put the training collar on him, then led him out into the courtyard, which had 2 diamondback rattlers in it (all of this trainers snakes had been milked of all venom, and had a strap around their mouths to prevent bites...kind of reminded me of those little rubber bands they put around lobster claws at the store). He started the collar out on a low shock setting (even vibrate only on some of the smaller dogs), and eventually worked it all the way up to the full shock on Travis, and never could get a reaction out of Travis. He brought him back to me and said that hes either a dog with an extremely high threshold of pain, or his coat is too thick and the prongs werent making contact with his skin. He suspected the latter, and suggested that we take some scissors and trim a section of his neck coat. So he sent one of his folks to the store to get some scissors. While they were still off looking for the scissors, I had the bright idea that we could perhaps just wet down Travis neck, and the water would complete the contact. The trainer thought that was a pretty good idea, so I went over to the water hose and wet him down, he then put the collar back on him, and at a relatively low setting, after Travis expressed curiosity about one of the snakes, the trainer zapped the ever-living snot out of him. Apparently, just for your future reference, water is a REALLY REALLY good conductor of electricity. So its true what theyve been telling you all your life - dont drop the hair dryer in the bathtub. Because of the over-kill, the trainer was unclear as to whether Travis had gotten the point, so he asked if I could stick around for a while, let the dog forget all about it, then take him back out and see what happened. So after an hour, the trainer took Travis back out near one of the snakes, and once Travis noticed the animal, immediately backed away quickly headed in the opposite direction. He didnt need to to told twice after that first time. The trainer declared it a success. My general impression after watching this process with 20 or so dogs is that this is a really solid training. In fact there were 4 or 5 dogs there who had been trained in years past, brought by their owners for a refresher course. I dont think any of those dogs ever had to be popped with the training collar - they all knew exactly what to do, and knew they wanted nothing to do with a snake - even ones which had been trained many years earlier. Watching the snakes themselves was pure entertainment - you can tell their instincts are hard-wired. They didnt react much at all to their trainers - they were probably sick and tired of being pestered by them and had learned that resistance is futile. But their various reactions to dogs was really interesting - they considered almost all of the dogs to be an annoyance and a possible threat, and immediately went defensive - they didnt really want to bother striking, but would have if theyd felt particularly threatened. But the 2 or 3 tiny little dogs that went through the training? The snakes totally saw them as a potential meal, and went into a much more aggressive offensive mode. You could almost read their minds, as in this little scrawny ones ass is MINE! So Travis passed with flying colors, but with a significant delay of game. No word yet on when hell put on his cap and gown and go to commencement. Hopefully hes snake-proof now.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 21:52:36 +0000
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