Message #218124

[Hog Dog Mike]

I have a rat terrier that will point them like a bird dog.

Over the years I have trained lots of bird dogs to be de-snaked. Caught a rattler and pulled its teeth and sewed its mouth shut just to make sure. I probably did about 60 dogs with that snake.

What was strange was that some dogs naturally would not fool with it. You could not melt them and pour them on it. One was from Minnesota so you know it probably had never seen a snake. One strange thing I noticed was that lots of the labs would just wade right on in even after you had lit them up good. Same thing for German Shorthairs. Most dogs avoided them naturally and after shocking would not go near one for any reason.

One of the dogs I did was a real good high dollar dog. That day you could not get him to go near a rattle snake. He was later killed by a cotton mouth. The only thing I figure is that it smelled different.

A dog is not like a tool that you take out of a tool box. Just because you have it trained to do something one day does not mean he will do what you want a year from now.