Reptile & Amphibian Forums

seen, heard of, or tried to train a dog to find snakes?
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Jason L. Dobry
Research Associate
College of Veterinary Medicine
Department of Veterinary Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology
Washington State University

Dogs have been used to find herps in several different situations. In New Zealand they are using dogs to study and map populations of arboreal geckos. In florida they are using dogs to find burmese pythons and their eggs. I also have heard of a few private individuals who have trained their dogs to find other herps. I even heard of a border colie that knew different types of herps by name.

The most common method is to train the dog to sit as a signal. Many people also use setters and pointers for the breeds natural abilities to find (but not grab and kill) game birds.

THERE IS ONE BIG DANGER. Training your dog to find herps will almost inevitably bring him/her into contact with venomous snakes. For this reason you must trust that your dogs training is perfect and he won't get too close or grab the animal. Another danger of a poorly trained dog is that it will kill or injur the herps you are trying to find. The bottom line is that any dog should be imaculately trained in controled situations before even attampting to bring them into the field. Start off using rubber snakes, snake skins, dead snakes, etc. and have them on a short lead when you start with the real thing.

One other tidbit that most dogs can be trained for fairly easly. The find the snake that just got loose trick. I know a guy whos shepard does this whenever needed.

cheers

> In florida they are using dogs to find burmese pythons and their
> eggs.

I wonder if they lose any dogs that way - Burmese Pythons being excellent ambush predators that are more than capable of killing a dog.

How bad is the burmese python problem in Florida now?
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3.0 WC; 0.2 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Dogs are a deli item to large snakes, that's what they feed zoo pythons in Thailand.

They use big dogs and most burms are not going to be big enough to take down a shepard. I believe they use the dogs more to find nests anyway.

Don't burmese pythons incubate their eggs?

The two that I had - they were bred at East Bay Vivarium (when it was still in Emeryville) - and their mother incubated them.

I suppose an incubating mother would be less likely to strike to kill. I remember Owen telling us that they offered the mother food but she refused it, she only left the nest a few times for water.
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3.0 WC; 0.2 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Yes they do but they don't eat while on the eggs. Defensive strikes only. And yes a big enough snake could take down just about any dog, but as jetzen said, a trained dog knows how to handle himself in the situation.

supervision from the handler and natural instincts of the dog are most important.

Yes and a trained utility dog prolly knows better than to get within striking range of a monster burm, but, if a 16 footer(not uncommon) even got it's coils around a Germ shep it would be bye-bye doggie. What's it take? something like 8-10 mins of squeezing?

i tryed an Alligator "that didnt work"

Yeah, i remember that story, and i'll bet a good sized gator would make a large dog history too.

years ago i had a 8-9 foot burm and it wrapped me up i had to go across the street and kick on my neighbors door for help, strange but true.

I never had my burms wrap around me, but at six foot, I had been handling the rabbit colony and didn't wash up properly - and had one bite my face. Literally. Teeth from the upper jaw were above my eyebrow and lower jaw were below my lower lip. He didn't try to constrict - I had to get help to get him off without damaging his teeth too much.
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3.0 WC; 0.2 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

About 3 months ago my jack russell (Scrappy) was in my snake room. He went up to the middle of a 39-unit Boot Box rack I had at the time and began barking ferociously. I ignored him for 5 minutes and then the light-bulb went off. I squeeeeezed my head back and around the side of the unit - and there was one of my 4' Eastern Kings, out of his tub, and totally behind the rack. Anybody who has been in my snake room knows I have about 175 adults hundreds of babies --- so snake scent is ALL OVER that room. In addition, if you have been to my snake room you know there is not one empty foot of wall space so there is no way he saw the snake (the snake was totally behind the rack - meaning actually behind the rear wall of the rack).

Just amazing that his nose is that sensitive and he was able to detect that the snake was out and shouldn't have been.

I wish I had trained him when he was a pup but now he is 7 years old and grouchy!
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Peter Jolles
East Coast Colubrids
www.eastcoastcolubrids.com

herded garters to me several times, only 2footers he would ignore the smaller ones, P.B.-X- rott-x-german shep. one of the best mutts i ever owned. Never was trained for it just started doin' it.
Also in the 70's i had a Husky-X-Lab that i would take flippin and everytime he saw a rattler he would jump 3' in the air, also never trained and never was bitten.

In Guam they use dogs to hunt brownsnakes that have devistated the whole island. I don't think there is 1 small animal including birds on the island. I think they use them in Hawaii also to sniff inboard shipping containers so it doesn't happen to them. Derek

It has been done and still is...
In fact the last time this was brought up I mentioned that they are toying with dogs to find specific animals...indigos.
There was one at the airport when I was shipping some animals through Delta last year, but I don't know any more and I haven't heard more either.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Skip Snow gave a presentation July 22 at the Miami Museum of Science on the Burmese python situation. He’s the park biologist working at eradication. The beagle dog that was being trained to find pythons (“Python Pete”) was never actually used in the field and was used as a source of publicity only. They have no funds to train dogs, and in fact, very little for the actual eradication effort. It really is limited to finding them along the roadways through Everglades National Park by chance encounter. They are destroyed as they find them. They have had success in implanting radio chips into male pythons and using them to track down other (females) pythons. It turns out the male pythons do a much better job of locating them than the dog. I was really skeptical about the whole Burmese “problem”, but they have found nests, juveniles and pythons up to 16 feet in almost every location accessible by car throughout ENP. They are apparently there to stay. There is no money to eradicate them, even if it were possible. There is great concern for natives like the Indigo facing competition for the food source, but my guess is that the baby Burmese are actually a new food source for the big Indigos and Kingsnakes.

Thanks everyone for your replies
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Jason L. Dobry
Research Associate
College of Veterinary Medicine
Department of Veterinary Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology
Washington State University