Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

Just got back from our snake-breaking class tonight, where the instructor’s motto is “We traumatize your dogs for life.”

Which is why one poor Lab who passed her final retest–known as “snake-in-a-bag”–demonstrated her relief with explosive diarrhea.

But I’m ahead of myself.

There were a dozen dogs in class, most of them Labradors, for some reason. But also a Rottweiler, a boxer, two fancy showdogs with bows in their hair and everything, and a few assorted mutts. Each came with at least one anxious owner, usually two, all of us certain we were doing the right thing by teaching our dogs to avoid rattlesnakes, but all of us also knowing it was going to involve some pain.

Here’s the setup: two defanged Western Diamondbacks out on the lawn, both wearing orange collars and orange leashes which were attached to the green rugs they were coiled on top of. Why the leashes? “Because this is snake training,” the lead instructor explained, “not a snake hunt. There’s nothing worse than seeing a rattlesnake one moment, and then not seeing it the next.” Gulp. So this way no one was going to lose them in the grass.

How do they defang them? By hand. As the instructor told me when I was questioning him later, “Unfortunately you can’t buy them at Wal-Mart that way.” They catch the rattlers, then grab them by the back of the head and pull the fangs off. Or if they just want to get rid of the venom temporarily, they “milk” them by doing that same grab and getting the snake to release its venom. Just so happens there’s a detail in my novel that I got from a guy who works at my vet, and who used to be a rattler-milker himself. It’s why he’s now missing the top half of his forefinger. He told me a guy who used to milk snakes with him got bitten in the forefinger, too, but he decided not to amputate. So now he just has this flaccid, discolored upper forefinger hanging there like a rotten banana peel. See if you can find that reference in Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature. I just delivered that vet tech a signed copy of the novel as a thank you for that special detail.

(By the way, if you want to watch someone defang a rattlesnake, have at it.)

Anyway.

So they set up two stations on different sections of lawn and had us bring our dogs out one at a time. One of the lawns was fully visible through the big picture windows of the building. So everyone who wasn’t training at that moment got to sit inside and watch, all of us wincing and cheering like we’d shown up on a Saturday night to watch some reality show on a big screen TV.

Before taking dog and owner outside to meet the snake, the instructor strapped an electronic collar very tightly around the dog’s neck, with the prongs actually digging into the throat. That way the shock would feel like the snake had actually bitten the dog in the throat. Nice, huh?

Then instructor, owner, and dog went outside. And set up the “safe area” several feet away from the snake. This was the area where the dog would receive all his love and reassurance after the horror it was about to go through. The instructor took the dog from there so that the dog wouldn’t hold against his beloved owner what was about to happen.

So the dog was on a leash, electronic collar around its neck, and the jolt button in the instructor’s hand. The training involves getting the dog to recognize three sensory cues about snakes: sight, sound, scent. The snake was cooperating very well by rattling its tail off–in fact, it rattled continuously for the next hour and a half. It was a little peeved. The trick for the instructor was waiting until he knew the dog had gotten all three cues before administering the shock. Because if he shocked too soon, the dog might only recognize sight and sound, but not get the scent. And as we found out later, scent was the key.

So one by one we watched these poor unsuspecting dogs mosey up to the snake and either go in for the sniff, or already start shying away because something seemed wrong. What we saw over and over was this behavior the instructor explained was typical in the animal kingdom: the dogs noticing another animal that might be dangerous, and purposely turning their bodies to the side and not making eye contact with it. So all these dogs were starting out walking straight for it, doing their nice heeling at the instructor’s side, then getting nervous and angling their bodies once they heard the rattle.

But that wasn’t good enough. Because the instructor–and the owner–needed to be sure the dog got the message. Just slightly turning away wasn’t enough. So the instructor kept bringing the dog in closer, and once the dog really showed it didn’t want to go further, that’s when he gave the dog a shock.

And the dogs yelped and leapt high and scurried back to the safe area for some love from the good owner, and invariably everyone inside laughed at the dog’s reaction, even though it’s not funny to watch an animal get hurt. I don’t know why we laughed every time–maybe it’s because we knew it was for the dog’s own good, or maybe it’s because it was so predictable, and we’d been sitting there so tense waiting for the shock, and so once it came we laughed out of relief.

Some of the dogs got it right away. They only needed to be shocked once to know they didn’t want anything to do with the snake. Next time the instructor walked them within range of the rug, the dogs pulled at the leash and ran the other way. Success. Other dogs were repeat offenders, still getting in too close, still needing to be shocked and then comforted.

So how about Bear? Just so you know, his nickname around this house is the Black Prince. Because Bear is master of all he surveys. He knows he’ll never be mistreated, knows he can get away with many daily misdemeanors simply because he is so handsome and charming. And because, as my husband likes to say, he has his own lawyer (that would be me).

So there’s Bear, out being his usual cocky self, and maybe because of that snake encounter we had last weekend, he actually stopped in his tracks when he heard the rattle. But then he made the mistake of creeping in closer for a sniff and ZING!

He must have leapt three feet in the air. And then all 85 pounds of him launched in the opposite direction, pulling the instructor clean off his feet. Yes, I was proud. Bear made it back to the safe area with his tail tucked so far it was practically in his mouth. He was not interested in being comforted. Every time my husband touched him, he jumped again. Clearly, this is not how the Black Prince was accustomed to being treated. Nothing was right with his world.

When he’d finally calmed down enough, it was time for the second pass, to make sure he got the message. He got it all right–he refused to take even two steps toward the snake. He again launched in the opposite direction. The instructor pronounced him taught.

And then it was our loaner Lab’s turn. We’ve been watching my stepson’s 8-year-old yellow Lab Kaya for the past month or so, and we’ll have her for at least another month still, so we want her to be safe with us when she hikes. The thing with Kaya is that she is completely, madly in love with her boy, and now that he’s not around she is completely, madly in love with her boy’s father. I have never seen a dog worship anyone the way Kaya does my husband. It’s both sweet and kind of sick.

Turns out it’s also dangerous. She’s so eager to please, she’ll walk where you want, even if there’s a big angry diamondback there. She had to get shocked multiple times, and still she’d go back if you led her there.

But the real test was with the snake-in-a-bag. After all the dogs had gone through the first round, it was time to test whether they had learned to detect a rattlesnake just by smell. So the instructors took a defanged snake with its rattles taped together (again, something somebody had to do by hand) and put it in a mesh bag, thereby canceling out two of the three sense signals. Because you don’t want your dog to get close enough to a snake to see it or hear it. You want him to smell it at a distance and keep away.

They hung the snake-in-a-bag from a garden hose wrapped around a hose stand. Then the owners were supposed to walk their dog up to the hose, pause there while the dog got a sniff, and see what happened.

Some dogs wouldn’t get within five feet of it. One dog who loves to play with the hose at home (her owner told me) went right up to the hose and nosed the snake bag like there was nothing in it. That dog got to do the remedial test with Kaya. Because Kaya, too, walked right up to it just because her man was leading her there. She didn’t understand that her job as obsessive worshiper of my husband was to lead him away from the snake, rather than keep going just because he asked her to. Sigh.

And Bear? I got about two steps with Bear before he whipped around, pulled me right off my feet, and dragged me across the grass on my hip all the way back to the building. Was I proud! And in pain!

Kaya, the hose-loving dog, and one of the showdogs had to stay afterward for one more test. This time, since obviously even the dumbest dog would realize by now that the lawn was a bad place to be, the instructors tricked them by hanging the snake-in-a-bag just outside the door. So this time the owner walked out into the back yard, but the dog should have been able to smell the snake the second they crossed the threshold. Showdog still never got it. Showdog has to come back and repeat the whole class. Hose-loving Lab got it so well she came back inside and spewed diarrhea all over the floor she was so freaked out. And Kaya still did whatever her man asked her to do, snake or no snake.

Finally–FINALLY–she had one last chance. They put the snake-in-a-bag outside a different door, and my husband walked her through it, and finally Kaya jumped back at the smell. Thank you. Not what you’d call rock-solid, but at least she finally broke through her need to please.

And believe me, as a fellow sufferer of the need-to-please I was noticing that whole situation. How many times have I powered through my own intuition just because I didn’t want to let someone down or hurt someone’s feelings? But that’s a whole other post.

So there you have it. These are the kinds of things you can do with a Saturday night. The dogs are currently sacked out on the couch, trying to convince themselves it was all a nightmare.

There’s no doubt that was a trauma for them, but I’m really, really happy we put them through it. Because seeing them get in there and sniff that rattlesnake we ran into last weekend was pretty frightening. At least now I feel they might be able to give us some warning next time there’s one in the vicinity.

And now I’ll know not to hike with Bear on a leash. I prefer not to be dragged face-first through cactus.

[UPDATE: Woke up at 2:30 this morning panicked and breathing hard because I’d just had a nightmare about being bitten by a rattlesnake. Gee, who could have seen that coming?]

Technorati Tags: Dogs, Dogs and Snakes, Snake Breaking, Snake Avoidance Class, Dogs and Rattlesnakes

Posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 9:48 pm under Life, Dogs . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.