Rattlesnake Avoidence Clinic

[furtech]

Today I took the dogs on a long drive out to Victorville for the " Rattlesnake Avoidance For Dogs " session.

I was happy to see that I could take Pearblossom all the way out to Victorville, allowing me to avoid the whole I-10/I-15 mess. The drive out there was uneventful and the traffic was light: I made it out in under 90 minutes.

I had looked online for things to do out in Victorville: if I was driving all the way out there I wanted to visit SOMETHING of interest in the area. Man, was I wrong: the first listing of "Places of Interest:Victorville" in Wikipedia says, "The Victorville Wal-Mart is known as one of the chain's most dangerous stores. In 2006 their operating hours were changed from 24 hours a day to 5AM to Midnight due to high crime in the late night hours." Good thing they have a prison conveniently located there !

Yeah-- not going to find much there .

Major local industry.

I couldn't figure out what all these abandoned homes were until I saw this sign . Apparently this is the site of "George Air Force Base". The name wasn't familiar to me, but I drove around the base after the clinic. Apparently decommissioned around 1992.



I finally arrived at the reason for the drive out to this place: the rattlesnake clinic. The whole thing only took a few minutes for both dogs. I had to supress my self when Rondo and Apache were zapped: that's a healthy jolt. But they sure learned. Simply, the process is to let the dogs see a rattlesnake, then jolt. They also bring them near a hidden snake, let them get the scent, then jolt. The process sounds simple, but the timing is crucial: there's a reason that Patrick is so in-demand (and why he has so little competition). The man is -very- good.

The final test is to let the dogs go, with a rattlesnake between us. The dog should come when called, but should swerve wide to one side or the other (you want them to get well-away from the snake if they ever meet one). Both dogs passed with flying, terrified colors! No pics, though: they're afraid of PETA-types using them out-of-context. Fascinating work, though!

Then it was a long drive back, with a stop at a roadside stand I visited many years ago, Charlie Brown Farms! They were a quaint roadside stand many years ago...boy, have they changed. Enough for a post of it's own!

Comments

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

It's probably a shock collar they're wearing that is activated when they're near the rattlesnake. And yes, they will associate it with the snake. When you get an underground electric fence to contain your dog, you put little flags around the boundaries of your property. The dogs soon learn that going near the flags causes a shock.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

What she said (it was a remote training collar)...I also asked him if I should wait for a while before I put a no bark collar on either dog (so an not to confuse or dilute the rattlesnake aversion). Patrick said that was a good question: he said that the dogs would -not- confuse the two different conditionings-- that they would not even associate the two different situations, despite the similarity of conditioner.