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I know you can train dogs to sniff out racoons and stuff like that but could you train a dog to sniff out snakes? If you could it would make finding snakes a whole lot easier. I really would like to know what people think about this.

Yes people have trained dogs to find but not kill snakes.

My Schnauzer can sniff out xerobates pretty well, hes alittle snake shy but he could probably do them too. Its actually not difficult to do if you spend the time on it. As far as differentiating between species, I guess using sheds could help with that.
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Brett
www.auntievenom.com

Over in Guam (sp) they use dogs to sniff out the out of control brown snakes.....use them at airports to make sure they dont stowaway.....
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Chris
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how would you go about training a dog to do that?

Here's the link to the National Geographic Story:
National Geographic Link

I've been involved in scent training for some time now. If it has a scent, chances are pretty good dogs can learn to find it. Not EVERY dog makes a good scent detection candidate, however.

Some of the things dogs are currently being used to detect: drugs (several different types), people (tracking, air-scenting, human remains), explosives (several different types), land mines (also requires the dog to learn dozens of different scents), termites, mold, skin cancer, accelrants (search the remains of fires in arson investigations), cash (used by customs), and of course, snakes- to prevent the spread of tree snakes to other islands.

Around here (West Texas) most of the dog training regarding snakes is aversion training, called 'snakeproofing'. It's not 100%, as the dog can still accidently stumble across a snake, but it does make sure that they don't get bit being curious.

To form the basis of any foundation scent training, you need a source of the scent (in this case, fresh sheds, bagged snake, etc.) Dead animals do smell different from live ones, so don't use a frozen snake, or your dog will only find you dead snakes. You need a reward, and you need to associate the scent with the reward. If you are interested, I recommend reading up on classic and operant conditioning.

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