Just one thing I thought I would add, although my dad was a hunter / fisherman and quite the naturalist, he usually killed the rattlesnakes in the yard (elswhere he let them be). When we were small he actually made a point of always making us come see any snakes that were found and to walk around and look at them from all angles. This developed our eye for spotting them and avoiding accidental bites, and is probbaly what led to my love of them. I would often find an atrox in the yard and never tell him. I would just sit and watch it and check around the next day to see if it was still around etc.

We did have dogs get bit, they were always the instigators. We had one that continued the activity, a yellow lab that just loved rattlesankes and walked around carrying them gently in his mouth (he was pretty much immune after his first bite, definitely immune after subsequent bites), the others learned not to mess with them after the first bite.

To this day I still tell people to make a point of taking a few minutes to just look at the snakes from all angels and to have kids do the same to develope that eye for them. I think it makes a world of difference.

Rich

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