Snakes and pet safety

The other day, Miss Kitty (pictured below) leapt up from her nap with a startled bark and began to bark with an unusual hysteria (vultures, her nemeses, cause a completely different tone of bark). She continued to stare off my deck into the rocks below.

My border collie, Ketchum, stood up and helped Kitty stare off the porch. I recognizing the bark and walked out onto the porch to help them stare into the mixed brush and rocks on the slope below.

I recognized the bark because I had heard it just weeks before when kitty alerted me to a three foot black tailed rattlesnake that had slithered curiously onto my deck. The border collie had fled altogether that time.

What Kitty and Ketchum have in common is a shared terror of snakes. They gained this terror through the relatively easy method of snake aversion training rather than the much more difficult and possibly deadly route of getting bitten.

Rattlesnake bites are sadly very common in pets and humans during our warm summer months. Just this week at Ventana, we rechecked three snake bites that had been rushed to emergency after hours or over the weekend. We carry the very expensive antivenin necessary to save a pet's life in case of snake bite, but, honestly we would rather not use it.

Working in a veterinary hospital, I have sadly seen the effects of snake bite in cats and dogs. Snake bites are extremely painful as well as possibly deadly. One patient has already lost his life to snake bite this summer.

I would do anything to save my dogs in the event of snake bite. I would gladly pour painkillers, antibiotics and antivenin into their bodies to save them from the horrible outcomes that I have seen over the years. But more important than treatment after the fact is avoiding the bite in the first place.

Dogs get bitten off leash and on, in the desert, washes, golf courses and back yards. Walls rarely keep snakes out, and bushes along roadways provided habitat.

Rather than try to avoid snakes, I decided to teach my dogs to avoid them for me, after all they have a better sense of smell and hearing than I do. Instead of snake proofing my habitat (impossible on the many acres where my dogs roam) I snake proofed my dogs.

My dogs have informed me about snakes on my porch and deck, and in Kitty's case a decorative metal snake. And so far, having lived in the desert with these and other dogs for 11 years, I have never had a snake bite. I have also never had a personal close encounter with a snake when my dogs were nearby.

Snake avoidance is not 100%. Few things in life are. Terriers are tougher to convince that this isn't a battle worth having, and some bird dogs may be too busy chasing birds to remember the lessons of snake avoidance.

As for the alert that brought me onto the deck last week: I finally saw coiled in the bushes 10 feet off the bottom of the deck the striped racer that I refer to as the front yard snake. Racers are not poisonous, and pose no threat to my dogs, which is why it is allowed to patrol the front yard unmolested. I praised the dogs for their alertness and went inside, confident that my dogs will continue to alert me in the event of snakes on my property.

To make things easier for our clients and others living on the northeast side of Tucson, we have put together onsite snake training with Central Pet and the snake handlers at Arizona Animal Experts. We do these several times in the late spring and early fall based on demand. If you have any questions about snake aversion training you can call me or Ronnie at (520) 299-1146. Our website at www.ventanaanimalhospital.com has up to date snake aversion information.