Rattlesnake Avoidance Training With Cody Will

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to the show, everybody. Today's episode is pretty
awesome. We had Cody Will from
Rattlesnake Ready LLC. I've been lucky enough to know
Cody for years. He's awesome.
He has an incredible job. He's fun to talk to.
I think you're gonna love the show today.
You might notice we had some lagissues in our connection a
couple different times. So if you hear us talking over

(00:24):
each other, you just know that was not intentional whatsoever.
It was just a little bit of a lag problem.
But without further ado, let's start the show and you can get
to know Cody. Will.
I think a lot of our guests, youknow, probably when they saw the

(00:44):
name and the title, probably already Googled you to see what
it is you do. But for you know, for those of
you who hadn't, Cody has probably the most bad ass job on
the planet. I'll let him explain the
insurance and outs of it, but heprevents dogs from getting bit
by rattlesnakes and you know, other other venomous creatures.
So super cool. And if you hear that, you anyone

(01:07):
listening probably has 1000 questions already.
Like what does that mean? How do you do that like this?
There's just so much to this. And every time I talk to you,
Cody, it's just like blows my mind what it is you do.
And I always think of something new that I just can't wrap my
head around. So welcome to the show.
Why don't we just start? I mean, tell us about yourself.
Like, how did you, how does thiseven come about?
How did you get to be a person that prevents dogs from getting

(01:31):
bit by rattlesnakes? Yeah.
So where to start with that? I this wasn't even on my radar,
you know, when I was younger that I would be doing for a
living, you know, I joked that the the business kind of found
me. So in a nutshell, I grew up
loving wildlife, grew up with dogs.

(01:51):
My parents always had boxers. That's the the breed that I grew
up with. And yeah, we lived in a rural
area where rattlesnakes were a problem.
This is in rural Northern California.
And it's not just there. I mean, there's, there's
different rattlesnake species across the whole United States
and down in New Mexico and up inthe Canada as well.
So anyway, dogs getting bit as aproblem and my first job

(02:16):
naturally and in high school wasat a pet store and a customer
came in asking about snake avoidance training for dogs.
And I'd never heard of it, but Ithought that sounds fascinating.
And I just kind of went full nerd entrepreneur research mode
and just, you know, looked into it and I essentially saw there
at the time there was nobody in the area offering that sort of
thing. So did and.

(02:37):
How old were you at that time? So I was at this point, I was, I
had graduated high school, I wasgoing to a junior college.
So I was probably 1920 somewhereright in there.
OK. And yeah, so I did a ton of
research. So again, nobody was offering
it. Basically put in what I needed

(02:58):
to to get things started. Tried it for fun on my family's
dogs 1st and the neighbors and friends dogs and kind of got the
gist of it and it was really impressed with how well it
works. And yeah.
And so basically the the rest was history.
Created a full full blown business after that.
OK, that. That's a good synopsis.

(03:19):
That's amazing. So I like that.
You were young, right? You're 19.
Someone asks you about this and you're like, I know nothing
about it, but maybe I should. Yeah.
And there, you know, there's a little more to I say there's a
little more to the back story. It wasn't like I just picked up
a rattlesnake and started using it that day.
You know, there's again, I grew up with reptiles.
I thought they were fascinating.So I already learned, you know,

(03:41):
I knew how to read them. We would get snakes, including
rattlesnakes in my parents backyard.
And so that they were part of living in that area.
We would just, you know, relocate them off the property
sort of thing. But yeah, and then growing up
with dogs too, just had knowledge in both areas.
And then also I wanted to be well-rounded.
So did a lot of research and just basic dog training too.

(04:02):
And that's so there's, there's alot more to the back story, but
that's kind of the gist of it. So you just said something that
kind of piqued my interest. You said I I knew how to read
them. And, you know, I know a lot
about dogs and reading dog body language and, you know, makes me
comfortable around dogs. And I got my first cat as an
adult and holy crap, I had so much to learn.

(04:23):
It was like, everything a cat does is the opposite of a dog.
I'm like, why is that thing staring at me right now?
And my wife's like, 'cause it once petted, I'm like, well, if
a dog did that, that's 'cause it's about to launch itself at
me. Like this is everything's just
weird with them. Like, tell me about snakes.
Like, how do you read a snake? Cause like many people, snakes
freak me out. Like, I don't have a deathly

(04:44):
fear of them. I'm, you know, able to be around
them, but I, I know nothing about them.
So you can read a snake Besides like it's hissing.
Yeah, I mean, I think like a lotof things, it's, it's not any
like, you know, not some extra special snake whisperer type,
you know, it's more just when you work with an animal over and
over again, you just pick up on different things and, and learn

(05:09):
to, you know, they're, they're not, I can't say they're 100%
predictable. That's not safe to say.
But at the same time, you kind of learn what to expect, you
know, their limitations, like their strike range, you can tell
by their subtle body language ifthey're nervous versus
comfortable and, you know, things of that sort.
And so, yeah, just working with them over and over again, you
just, you pick up on those things.

(05:30):
And as you pointed out, if somebody threw a completely
different animal at me, I'd be awhole, you know, steep learning
curve all over again. But snakes, and it's not, not
all snakes are the same across the board.
There's some species that are known to be more mellow than
others, some that are more feisty.
And then of course with venomousyou got to be extra careful
with. But yeah, I would, I would argue

(05:53):
that work with them enough, you can learn what to expect and and
read them. And yeah, they're definitely
very different than dogs. Now, do do they have distinct
personalities if there's three snakes and you get to know them?
You know, I mean, you said 1 might be more docile, 1 might be
a little, you know, more squirrely.

(06:14):
But did like, do they remember people?
And do they like, like, if a snake likes you, is it gonna be
nicer to you than a stranger? Or do they not think that way?
Yeah, without like anthropomorphizing them too
much. I mean, I they do have different
temperaments. You can find in our case in the
Phoenix area where I'm at, you can find 10 Western Diamondbacks
and you might have some that arevery quick to defend themselves

(06:37):
and you might have others that are way more passive and just
kind of would rather slowly fleeand everything in between.
So they, they are variable and we've got a whole collection
here and, and yeah, we've got across the board personalities,
some that are against super mellow, others that not so much.
But yeah, they can. I, I wouldn't say they recognize

(07:00):
me like personally by any means,that would be a stretch.
But I would argue that they are very conditioned to human
interaction and being handled. And in this case in, in my
world, being sniffed by dogs like our snakes are.
Again, I don't, I'm not dumb enough to say that they are
trained, but they're, they're, they're definitely conditioned
to the stress of the, the lessonitself and me interacting with

(07:22):
them. So the positive side of that is
they're, they're not stressed out all the time.
Like they're, they're pretty used to, to the, the
interactions that they deal with.
And we also, we can talk about this later if you want, but
there's things we do to kind of mitigate the stress 'cause they
are a little bit of a, you know,higher strung animal, more
defensive animal than than otherthings are 'cause, you know, to

(07:45):
a snake, as much as people are afraid of them, the reality is
they're terrified of us. And so that's where that has to
be brought into the picture if you're going to use them
properly for what I do in snake avoidance training.
If you're stressing out the snake day after day, that snake
is is going to succumb to that stress at some point.
And that also the temp going back to the temperament thing,

(08:07):
that can play a role too. If you get a high strung snake,
that might be one that I never bothered to use for training
because it's not going to adapt to captivity well.
It's going to be too stressed and have gut issues, any other
health issues that come along with that.
Whereas snakes that are a littlemore on the mellower side, they
may adapt to it just fine and just not care.

(08:29):
And so, but also there's a a caveat to that too.
If they're way too mellow, they're kind of useless because
I want the dogs to experience a rattlesnake that acts like a
rattlesnake, you know? So, yeah, we've got a, we've got
a, a joke, a crew of great snakes that are kind of right
smack in the middle where they still rattle and, and move and
do their thing, but they also eat just fine and, and seem to

(08:53):
love captivity. And yeah, so they're they're our
best workers. That's interesting.
I guess I never thought about that.
And, you know, when we train, wesee a lot of reactive dogs and
it's cool to be able to, the first time you work with a
reactive dog to bring a really, really mellow dog with you.
But eventually those mellow dogsdon't help very much because,

(09:15):
you know, the most reactive dogs, they start to be fine
passing a mellow dog, right? But they're trying to pass a dog
who's got his tail in the air and might be a little more high
strung. And all of a sudden, you know,
it sets them off. So that's interesting.
So you'll have snakes that are just too chill and they're just,
they're not good enough. You need one that's gonna act
like a snake in the wild. Something in the middle, yeah

(09:37):
'cause I said too high strung. They're a little harder for me
to work with. They don't adapt to captivity
well, but yeah, too mellow is also not ideal either.
So I, I kind of have to cherry pick the, the best personality
types for this, which that isn'tlike a regular thing.
We have a a set group of snakes that I've had for years now that
all kind of have somewhere in the middle of those two

(09:59):
temperaments. OK, so real quick, I don't think
we should spend long on this, but I was telling someone about
this episode who who lives up north and they were like, what?
Like why? Why, Why would you even train a
dog around a snake? And once I explained it to him,
it made sense. But they didn't get it because

(10:20):
they weren't they didn't live ina place with venomous snakes.
So, and then I've also dealt with, you know, we have a lot of
clients in your area and I've dealt with clients who are like,
this doesn't matter to me. I live in a neighborhood.
I'm not going to take my dog outin the Canyon around, you know,
rattlesnakes. But give us give us the quick
reason like why does this, why does this matter?

(10:40):
Why is your job even a thing? Yeah, yeah.
It's funny when I meet new people that don't live in a
snaky area, I almost dread when they asked the question of like,
what do you do for a living? It just they're like, what?
Yeah, good luck with that. I'm like, OK, well, anyway, so
yeah, it's in the areas. In the areas it's a problem.
It's a significant problem. And it's not always what you

(11:00):
would think. So, yeah, that our customers are
not necessarily people who live downtown in an apartment and
their dog just goes to the, you know, local dog park or park or
whatever. And that's their life.
They don't necessarily get out into the desert.
But the crazy thing, especially in the Phoenix area, I mean, you
can have a mountain with a hiking trail on it right in the
middle of town and there are rattlesnakes there.

(11:22):
And dogs get bit all the time. They don't know better when they
encounter one. They just want to investigate it
like anything else new that, youknow, they typically want to
smell it. And so dogs get bit pretty Dang
often. And unfortunately, snake bite is
a very serious, potentially lifethreatening issue for dogs.
And so the the vet bills that people can accrue are are

(11:44):
horrendous. Often in excess of of couples is
several $1000. And yeah, so it's, it's a
significant problem. And that's our clientele is kind
of a mixture. We get people who live in, you
know, more rural areas that get snakes right on their back
porch. We at our facility here in Cave
Creek, we have had a rattlesnakethat was not one of my own show

(12:06):
up on, on our facilities porch as well.
And so, yeah, there's there's pet dogs that are at risk that
live in the rural areas. And sometimes you get these
subdivisions that look super developed where you wouldn't
expect there to be a lot of wildlife, but we get these that
we call them washes. It's just drainage areas that
often cut through these developments and those act as
little highways for wildlife. And so even some of the more

(12:27):
developed spots, a lot of the homes on the, the outer edges of
the development or against thosewashes, they can get snakes
right in their backyard. So there's that.
There's also people who, whetherthey live in town or not, they
recreate with their dogs. They're going out on hiking
trails, they're camping, they're, you know, doing stuff
outdoors with the dogs. And again, most of the country,

(12:48):
with only a couple states as an exception, have some kind of
rattlesnake. And especially in Arizona,
they're pretty abundant and so it's a significant problem.
I don't know the exact number, but I would guess within just
the Phoenix area alone there's several 100 if not even few
thousand bites. So when it comes to dogs being
bitten, just the local emergencyvet here sees a couple hundred a
year. OK, Yeah, I think, I mean, I, I

(13:14):
tell any, any of our clients in Phoenix, you know, in
Scottsdale, all those areas, like, to me, it's crazy not to
do this unless you live in an apartment downtown and you're
never gonna go outside of town. But most of our clients live in
neighborhoods like what you described in Phoenix.
I feel like there's all these neighborhoods where it's a
beautiful neighborhood and it seems like suburbia, but there's
like a frickin mountain like right behind it or through it.

(13:37):
Like it's Phoenix is crazy that like it's, it's different than
so much of the country where sometimes you have to go
somewhere and there's just a mountain in the way and you have
to drive all the way around it. Yep.
Yeah, like I said, often rattlesnakes, often other
wildlife on those little mountains too.
I there's, there's lots that'll get you in Phoenix.
So that's that's my, that's my. Experience.

(13:59):
Even the plants will stab you here.
Yeah, the cactus. So let's talk a little bit about
your your snakes and your facility.
So the the first time we met you, I, I was at your house and
my gosh, you had so many snakes there.
It was like we were in like a spare bedroom and they were just

(14:19):
like snakes and they were in cages.
But man, to me, I was looking around like, this is just death
waiting to happen. And I left that thinking this
guy's wife must love him so muchbecause this is a lot of snakes
in one house. You've, you've since moved to a
phenomenal facility and it's, you know what, when I, when I

(14:40):
saw the place you're in now, I mean, it's, it's amazing.
So tell us a little bit about that.
So you've got all these snakes, super professional set up that
your yard outside and it's unbelievable.
Walk us through a little bit about that.
Yeah, yeah. No, we're really proud of it.
And yeah, we've definitely come a long ways because it's fun,
fun to think that you saw in ourhouse spare bedroom set up and

(15:02):
then how that's evolved to wherewe are now.
But that was the and that was just temporary until we were
able to build what you saw now. So yeah, so now we have a full
blown facility where we operate out of we've got a 2400 square
foot Nature Center where all thesnakes are on display and and
that's a whole rabbit trail right there.
But we have a separate name and social media and website for the

(15:25):
zoo part of what I do. So Rattlesnake Ranch is what we
call the property. That's Rattlesnake ranchaz.com
is the website that so that we do a lot of people education
with that. So people come for tours,
general admission, like walkthrough visits.
Kids love seeing the snakes. We let people come check things
out. It's all by appointment only.
It's just got to make sure that we're here.

(15:45):
And also when dogs are done being trained, a lot of dog
owners like to look through everything and it's kind of a
great way for people, especiallyif they're new to the area, to
kind of see the variety of rattlesnakes that Arizona has.
We've got pretty much all the native rattlesnakes on display
in there. And we also have we have a zoo
license. So we actually have a lot of
more exotic stuff too. We've got rattlesnakes from
Mexico and South America as well.

(16:07):
But so that's the indoor space. We have people come in, check
in, in our lobby and that's that's that.
And then outside we've got fullyenclosed kind of naturally
desert landscaped space that I designed and landscaped from
scratch that was kind of designed to mimic a a Phoenix

(16:27):
backyard slash hiking trail sortof set up.
And that's where we actually train the dogs is in that
outside space. And yeah, so between the the
Nature Center and that space, that's where most of my time is
spent working with pet owners and their and their dogs there.
There's a couple outbuildings too that are, you know,
ancillary to the snake building,but, and you can read more about

(16:51):
all the other spots on the, on the website.
But for the the training part, it's that desert landscape space
and then the the main facility where we I guess had people
check in and pay and whatnot. Cool.
So tell me a little bit about when people come just to kind of
take a tour and learn they is there a charge for that?
I'm assuming they pay a set fee and are there for X amount of

(17:14):
time. Yeah, so, and we kind of there's
a couple options. We do like a general admission,
which is just where people pay. They get through the doors and
they just look around at their own pace and and see whatever
they want. And currently that is just 10
bucks per adult. And most people spend hour, hour
and a half, give or take, just seeing all the snakes.
There's over 100 displays. So we've got, as far as I know,

(17:34):
the largest, most diverse collection of rattlesnakes in
one place. We've got pretty much every
species with a handful missing. And we've got, there's a bunch
of art and photography and some taxidermy and, and library and a
bunch of other stuff as well. And that's, that's all on
display. So that's, that's one option.
We also do like full blown tourswhere I'll take them outside,

(17:55):
show them the dog training area.We have a little rodent building
where we raise our own employeesfood basically.
And then we've got, yeah, we've got a walk in cooler building
where we basically hibernate a lot of the like North American
rattlesnakes that are from really temperate, you know,
colder areas. And there's the main showroom
too. So we'll show them all of that.

(18:16):
And then I also kind of go exhibit by exhibit, talk about
different species and a lot of, you know, fun fact stuff.
One thing I learned early on with this business is, yes, pet
owners want to keep their dogs safe, But, you know, dogs are
kind of, I would argue one of the most, you know, loved and
glorified animals in the world. And then you got rattlesnakes,

(18:38):
which are one of the most, like,hated and persecuted animals in
the world. And I think early on I realized
it'd be cool to have a like a like a Nature Center or zoo sort
of set up where people can learnfactual information and not, you
know, typical media sensationalized stuff that's
often blatantly wrong. And so we cover a lot of how

(18:59):
they're beneficial to local ecosystems, how their venom has
potential medical use, not just for the production of anti
venom, but just to give one example, there's a heart
medication made from pygmy rattlesnake venom.
And so there's stuff like that we'll talk about during tours.
And often guests will leave herejust with a wealth of knowledge
about rattlesnakes and, and again, factual information, not

(19:21):
just the, you know, myth and lore that surround them that a
lot of are, you know, those crazy uncle sort of stories that
you hear about rattlesnakes. So we'll put all your
information, of course, in the, the description.
I would encourage, you know, anylisteners, if you're not from
Phoenix and you're there on vacation or something, go do the

(19:42):
tour, check it out. I, it's super cool.
I, you know, I, I came once withmy wife and kids and it was
awesome, you know, to see those snakes and we're not big snake
people, but getting to learn a little bit about them and seeing
them and, you know, rather than like I've seen him at a zoo and
I've seen some in the wild, which in the wild I'm much less
intrigued by them. I kind of keep my distance, but

(20:03):
to see him with an expert, it was super cool.
So I would definitely encourage that for sure.
All right, well, let's, you know, a lot of our listeners are
dog trainers. So I, I can tell you every one
of them is like, all right, we've heard enough about, you
know your questions. We want to know how do you, how
do you do it? How do you train a dog around a
snake? So, well, walk us through the

(20:26):
process. Yeah.
So essentially it's, it's a fourstep process that, I mean, as
you can kind of do the math as we've been talking for this, if
you're listening, we use real rattlesnakes for the process.
I mean, as any even average dog owner would know, dogs have a,
you know, pretty keen set of senses.

(20:47):
And so in my opinion, anything other than the real deal itself
is not gonna, you know, suffice for training.
So we use real rattlesnakes for the actual process and it's 4
steps. It's pretty straightforward
training too. So it's, it's one of the few dog
trainings that I would argue thedogs really do learn well in one
lesson. And we do recommend follow up
visits to, to test and make surethat it held holds up over time.

(21:09):
But we can talk more about that later.
But in a nutshell, the actual process.
So yeah, four steps. We got 2 live rattlesnakes.
They're muzzled. So I use a special medical tape
and basically muzzle the snake so they can't get their mouth
open. That's my number one question
is, you know, how do you do that?
And I'll spare the details, but I do that.
It renders them harmless. It's humane forum and you know,

(21:32):
it doesn't hurt them sort of thing.
It's. So anyway, get them muzzled, put
the little snake out. Most dogs again, again, they
don't know better. They typically want to
investigate almost anything small and new for that matter,
but it's including a rattlesnake.
The dogs are wearing an E collarfor the training.
We use dog tray E collars. And yeah, basically they get

(21:53):
turn loose in our training area.They inevitably find the first
snake again. Most go right up to it.
As soon as they're too close to it, we give them a, you know,
surprise stimulation with the collar.
Most dogs, and this is tends to be true whether they've got E
collar experience or zero. Thankfully, they don't seem to
overthink it. Most dogs when they run up to
this new critter and feel a little sting, it tends to

(22:15):
surprise them. And more than often they blame
the snake and back off and are very quickly convinced that it's
probably something they shouldn't approach again.
And every dog's different. You know, we get some fun ones
that go back for multiple looks.We get others that that one
scare is all they needed. And they're, they're totally
avoiding it after that. But, and there, there's more
details, you know, the timing ofit and how I do it.
That's all kind of crucial. But just of it is they get too

(22:38):
close to that first snake, I correct them.
They tend to blame the snake andstart avoiding it.
After that step, we do 2 supplementary steps.
These involve skins and recordings of rattlesnakes.
We've got a fresh head of skin that we put outlet.
The dogs get downwind of the skin.
Some dogs already know to avoid it because they learned the
smell from the real snake and step one.

(22:58):
Others will willingly approach the skin as well.
And as if they do get close and sniff at it, we correct them
again and convince them that's abad smell.
And then I've got a little Bluetooth speaker between some
boulders are behind a Bush. And we play realistic recordings
of rattlesnakes that we took ourselves and convince the dogs
to flee from that sound. And then the last thing we do is

(23:18):
show them an adult rattlesnake. This one's also muzzled.
Typically by this point, I mean,99% of dogs that that started
showing interest in the snake the first time, by this point,
they typically want nothing to do with it and they're giving it
a big wide berth. And there's multiple tests we'll
do. And yeah, if they're clearly
staying away from it, then they're they're good to go at

(23:40):
that point. And that's kind of the the gist
of the, the process point out tothe owners are involved
throughout that whole thing. They're right there with the
dog. They have a couple minor roles,
but they're mostly there to to watch and and encourage their
dogs at certain points. But yeah, so that's kind of the
rattlesnake aversion training ina nutshell, the way that we do

(24:02):
it. So a common question I get is
what breed of dog is the hardestto train?
And my my standard answer is it's not about the breed, it's
about the the owner and the breed together.
If I get kind of a lazy couch potato person who gets a
Malinois, that's a nightmare. If you get a marathon runner who

(24:24):
wants to train with a Malinois, it's cool.
It's gonna be fine. So it's not as much the breed.
It's like when people get the wrong breed with what you do, do
you see are, does some breeds get corrected and are they more
likely to, to say, man, I'm going to get that thing?
Like how often do you see a dog who gets has frustration and

(24:46):
wants to take it out on the snake?
I, I'm sure the vast, vast majority do the opposite right
and want to leave. How often do you see one who
wants to tangle with it? Oh, it's very rare.
I almost wish that I kept perfect track of that because I
could give you a numbers answer,but it's in the one percentile
or less. I think 1 nice thing about
rattlesnakes compared to, you know, we get a lot of people.
Oh, my dog is like high prey Dr.He chases after every lizard,

(25:08):
every bird, everything that lands in the yard sort of thing.
Often we put a rattlesnake in front of them.
They're an animal that don't tend to just immediately flee as
soon as there's a threat. They're not like, you know, like
out here, we get a lot of, you know, bunnies and lizards and
things that the dogs just as soon as they see that quick
movement, they just want to chase after it.
Most of the time with the rattlesnakes.

(25:30):
It's not like I want to get thatreaction.
It's more of a what is that thing?
And so they they the typical reaction I see is more of a semi
cautious kind of tiptoe up to like, what is this?
And I don't give them time to play with it.
It's not like we just let leave them there with it and let them
interact with it for long. As soon as they get a good close
look, I'm already correcting them by that point.
And again, most dogs immediatelygo into flight response in that

(25:52):
moment. They jump back, they're
surprised and they're, you know,they're leaving it alone pretty
quickly. There definitely are some that
go back for more. I've always had a theory with
some dogs that you'll, you'll see them jump and then they look
at the snake and you can just see the wheels turning in their
head. They're like, did that really do
that? And so they kind of go back kind
of haphazardly, just tiptoeing up.
Maybe you can tell they're playing with fire.

(26:13):
And then when I correct them a second time, the way they run
away, it's almost like they're like, oh, Yep, it's definitely
that thing. And then they take off and you
can't get them near it a third time.
So those reactions are really common.
Every once in a rare while, I get a dog that goes more into
like fight mode or almost like retaliate toward the snake.
And, and I've had, you know, haddogs bark at the snake and stuff
too. And honestly, I don't care too

(26:35):
much what they do as long as they give it space.
If they run away from it to go to the other side of the
training area and hide, you know, that's just as good in my
opinion, as a reaction compared to a dog that just like gets
back 15 feet and just barks at it incessantly.
That that's, that's great too. Both of them are avoiding the
snake and are learning to basically not get bit in the

(26:55):
future is the goal. But yeah, for those few that try
to go after it, I mean, thankfully callers especially
nowadays, they work really reliably.
They have a wide range of settings.
There has been times where I hadto crank the collar up pretty
high to protect the snake basically.
And so, but I can pretty much count on one, maybe two hands

(27:16):
all the instances where the snake or the dog actually got
more aggressive toward the snake.
Like I said, most of the averageday here, it's it's dogs getting
spooked and getting away from itand kind of leaving it alone and
giving it space sort of sort of scenario.
But yeah, thankfully don't have I don't have dogs killing snakes
left and right. So the, you know, the way we

(27:40):
train will obviously we're doingvery, very different things than
you. And when, when we're using an E
collar, we spend a lot of time finding the working level
completely different than the level you're looking for, right?
Our working level is meant to bethe level that catches the dog's
attention, but definitely don't want to spook them because
we're, you know, we're not trying to create superstitious

(28:02):
behavior, just a whole, a whole different thing.
You don't have to give us like all the details, but how do you
determine the level for a dog? Are you basing it upon what you
know of their personality, or are the vast majority of dogs
starting at the same level no matter what?
Yeah. So that's a great question.
And that's just something I've kind of been able to fine tune

(28:23):
over time. Obviously it was a learning
curve my first year or so doing this, but I caught on pretty
quick. And so much of it is I pay a lot
less attention to the numbers onthe remote than I actually, you
know, obviously pay attention tothe dog's reaction.
And so for me, we always start conservative there.
I don't want to surprise the dogtoo harshly and shut him down on

(28:46):
the very first scare. Again, we do a whole four step
process. So it's not I don't want him
shutting down after that very first scare.
And so we start real low and conservative at first.
The nice thing is, and this is just where years of doing it,
I'm just good at it pretty quickon the fingers to adjust in
either direction if I need to. So typically as the dog is going
up to the snake and again, most dogs I would say that we work

(29:08):
with have never had any collar before, at least the majority of
them. We do get a lot that have, but
over 50% have never had any collar.
And so usually a light level will get their attention.
And in my opinion, the best reaction is if we can get them
kind of off their feet a little bit jumping and fleeing from the
snake, but didn't necessarily, you know, Yelp and immediately
get, you know, overly scared andshut down sort of behavior.

(29:31):
So on the Dodger collars, at least for the high output ones,
the other scaled zero to 127. Most dogs will jump and get away
from the snake in a like 30 to 60 range, like somewhere in
there. There's always exceptions.
I've had dogs where I had it allthe way up and they never even
Yelp. They just jumped and backed
away. Just, you know, different coat
types and pain tolerances and things like that all seem to

(29:52):
play a role. But the goal is start as
conservative as possible. But at the same time, you know,
owners are expecting their dogs to get this lesson down and
their dog to be afraid of a rattlesnake pretty much
indefinitely after this. So I also don't want to skimp
out, but that's not a reason to,like, crank it up.
There are a lot of trainers thatdo this sort of thing.
They did. They just leave that setting all
the way up for every single dog across the board, which I don't

(30:15):
agree with. I kind of used the analogy, you
know, this training is a lot like a little kid touching a hot
stove sort of lesson. That same little kid didn't need
to get a third degree burn to figure that lesson out.
And so again, with us, it's start low.
If that does the trick, leave itthere.
If now. And like I said earlier, there's
some dog that returned to the snake.
So say this is a dog that jumpedback but has gone back to the

(30:38):
snake for the third or fourth time in a row.
That tells me that level is probably not quite enough.
It's going to need a little more.
And so each time they return to the snake for another look or
they're still showing curiosity or interest, you know, I'm going
up and up from there. And yeah, whatever level finally
gets him to throw in the towel and back off and leave it alone,
then, then I'll leave it at thatsetting.
So I'm always fine tuning it as I go.

(31:01):
I've learned to not overly confidently predict what a level
a dog needs because I've had so many dogs just throw curveballs
at me where it looks like a, youknow, passive sensitive type
that is really enthusiastic toward the snake and totally
surprises me and needs a little more aggressive level than
average. And I get like a total high prey
Dr. dog that has, you know, slaughtered birds or, you know,

(31:24):
rodents in the backyard or whatever.
Then they go up to the snake andone light ZAP.
They're like, oh, shoot, I'm notused to feeling that around, you
know, these things. And then they get away and
that's all they need is that onelight 1.
So again, it's a little more paying closely attention to
their reaction and and whether they go back for another look or
not than the actual numbers it sells.
But I'm always adjusting as I go.
I guess one other side comment too with that.

(31:48):
I've also, it's not just like once I find that level, I leave
it there. If they got pretty spooked by
that first snake, sometimes whenthey go up to the skin, a
lighter level is more ideal because when they go up to the
skin, they're still kind of tense from that first little
scare. And so an actually lighter level
is going to get their attention better.
And is a higher ones not going to be necessary or even the same

(32:09):
levels not necessary because they're spooked.
And I also have to go the other way where some dogs almost build
a tolerance after running into that first snake and having a
few scares, to where I have to go the other direction and turn
it up as we go. Yeah, they're all different and
I'm kind of constantly adjustingbased on their reactions and and
whether they're seem to be learning it well or not.

(32:31):
So what would your preference be?
If you have a new client, would you prefer that they've never
worked on an E collar before or I mean how much harder or
different is it for you if they've been and assuming let's
say they've been well trained onan E caller for recall and
whatever else, does that complicate things or not really?

(32:51):
Yeah, that's another great question.
So I would say ideally for this training, little to light use of
an E caller, totally fine. No use of an E caller is great
if they are very used to it, that sometimes can be a problem
and kind of what that looks likewhen that when I come across

(33:12):
that. So for instance, if I get like a
like a bird dog that has, you know, was pretty, you know,
trained aggressively with an E collar, they already have their
like almost muscle memory in howthey respond to feeling any
stimulation. So what that might look like is
I got the snake out, dog runs upto it, gets close, sniffs it,

(33:34):
feels a jolt, runs right back tothe owner, just more out of
again, muscle memory. Like this is a recall thing.
I felt the stem. I'm going back to my owner now.
They don't necessarily blame thesnake.
In reality, the way I'm using the collar is actually more of
a, it's kind of replacing the snake bite itself is what I'm
basically doing with it is we'regiving the dog a surprise
feeling when they get too close to a dangerous animal, which is

(33:55):
a much better alternative than getting bit obviously.
But I'm kind of using it as a a surprise sort of scenario.
So I got a dog that's had a lot of heavy collar use.
It's already got some other training and preconceptions for
where those you know what that feeling is and what it's
associated with. Now, we'll say luckily, though,
they often do figure it out. Sometimes they take a little bit

(34:16):
higher stem than they're used tothat does the trick.
Or they catch on to the pattern of, oh, every time I'm near this
buzzing rope thing, I feel a stem.
I'm going to start leaving it alone, you know, And whether
they avoid a rattlesnake out of obedience or they avoid it
because they think that it literally zaps them again, as
long as they're avoiding the snake, it doesn't in the end,
you know, matter all that much. But yeah, I would definitely say

(34:37):
some of the dogs that have had heavy collar use sometimes can
be a little more complicated. I would say heavy use as in just
like probably overuse like they've the owner has probably
not been using it properly. They've they've corrected them
for every last little wrong thing they do wide range of
levels and the dog is almost robotic and maybe even a little

(34:58):
paranoid when it's the collars on sort of thing.
But for ones that have had been a little light use or proper use
to no use tend to be the most ideal candidates for this.
But but again, we're used to working with all dogs, even the
ones that have had a lot of use there.
There's I often have to get creative, but they usually do
come out the other end of the lesson figuring it out.

(35:21):
OK. Yeah, I could see some
challenges there with this, especially I pictured the ones
that are used in the E collar, you know, negative
reinforcement, you know, meaning, you know, the low, the
low stem where every time they call the dog, they're applying
the stem and they're releasing it when the dog comes, those
dogs get feel the stem hundreds if not thousands of times.

(35:44):
You, you know, at a low level intheory, you know, we don't train
that way. We use it more as positive
punishment as opposed to negative reinforcement.
So it's call the dog if they don't listen, we're pairing it
with the word no. So they're feeling it way fewer
times. And when I've seen some dogs
have been trained in the low stem, if it's a working dog and

(36:05):
low stem is you know what's low,it just depends on the dog.
Some of them have felt a decent stem level or a crazy number of
times. So I could see that posing some
challenges for sure. But on that note, so dog
training's a polarized world, Obviously, I I don't know if
snake avoidance is a polarized world.

(36:25):
I'm going to assume that it is, you know, I, I, I would assume
there's people out there that say Cody, like this is this is
bad. What you do is awful.
It's aversive. It's going to make the dog like,
you know, I hear it with prong collars, right?
If you put a prong collar on a dog, well, it's going to make
him leash aggressive and then he's going to like, I heard that

(36:46):
a dog had a prong collar and then he became it got tight
every time he passed a kid and then all of a sudden he's
attacking children. And if he'd been on a
martingale, that never would have happened or whatever some
nonsense. Do people say that about this?
We're like, OK, you're going to make the dog worse around snakes
and he's going to want to go kill every snake he sees.
Yeah, no, that's great questionstoo.

(37:08):
So I mean the making them worse around snakes, everything up you
set up to that point is definitely true.
I mean just like with a dog training just pretty much
anything else in the world for that matter, you got all sorts
of different opinions. Luckily the people who are very
anti collar in general don't usually call us to begin with.
But for the ones that are, you know, some have opinions.

(37:29):
There's supposed trainers out there that have strictly
positive reinforcement way. There's a book out, I guess you
know, Amazon you can find and. Yeah, I want to hear about that.
I've I've got lots of thoughts as to why.
I mean, again, if I could confidently train a dog in one
lesson to avoid a rattlesnake without any, you know, medium to

(37:50):
high stimulations like I would, I would be doing it that way
already. It's not like, you know, I'm
like, E callers are a great toolif they're used properly for
sure. But yeah, if I didn't need them,
I wouldn't be using them. So anyway, in my opinion, the
positive reinforcement thing, you might be able to accomplish
some things, but I just don't think you're going to get a

(38:11):
good, you know, fast instinctivereaction to rattlesnake to avoid
it, you know, with, with positive methods.
So I want to get into the weeds of that, but there are other,
you know, different opinions. We're, we're not the only people
that do this. We just, you know what, the way
I do it is the way I would want,you know, my own dog to go
through it. It makes sense.

(38:31):
It makes sense to me. It should make sense to the dog.
And, and we're not harsh with any of the methods or anything.
I, I think we do a pretty good job of getting the message
across without traumatizing the dog.
You know, the, the goal isn't totraumatize them is to simply
teach them, hey, these things are harmful, leave them alone.
And most dogs have no problem picking up that message really
quickly early on in the lesson. And you know, they often leave

(38:53):
our facility tail wagging, readyto go do something else for the
day. And and then of course, you
know, you get some softer ones that are a little more freaked
out. But again, they all learn it.
But going back to your your comment which was sorry I got on
a tangent there, you were sayingwith.
No, it's a good tangent. Attack of the snake yeah, I mean
again, so going back to like thefew dogs that actually want to

(39:17):
go after the snake, most of themdon't do that.
I will say in this is going on, you know, 10 plus years of doing
this now, I think I had I had one German short here of all
breeds that got aggressive toward the snake.
Every time I'd correct it like he his reaction wasn't too flee.
It was to and I had to be straight with that owner.

(39:37):
I'm like, all right, this might have backfired.
This here's how it normally goes, you know, 99.9% of the
time. But with your dog in particular,
if anything, it draw, it drew his attention to the snake and
now makes him cranky toward them, for lack of better words.
So that was a scenario where I just had to be pretty Dang
aggressive with the collar and Icouldn't tell the owner if we

(39:58):
just wore the dog out and it finally didn't, you know, let
the snake alone 'cause it was just tired at that point or if
it was actually afraid of the snake and I didn't see them
again. So I don't know if this is in
California when I first started to.
So ironically, I have not even seen that behavior since.
But yeah, so thankfully, just statistically speaking, I mean,

(40:18):
we do. Couple thousand dogs per year
and in 10 years of doing all these, that's the only one that
comes to mind where a dog like Phoolan wanted to attack it.
I've had a couple others that got actually, you know what,
another one comes to mind. So maybe, maybe 2 in that time I
had a, what was it like? A if it's like a mini

(40:41):
Staffordshire terrier one like the bully breed sort of thing.
I did have one of those, but he would only tend to, or she would
only tend to do it when the owner was near the snake.
So I get people who, you know, they're, they're around a muzzle
rattlesnake, They're fascinated.They want to take a picture of
it, which I usually have no problem with.
And they wanted to get in for picture.
And anytime they get close to this thing, the dog would get
all fired up and protective. So that was good behavior to

(41:03):
note. But I noticed when they were
away from the snake, the dog would, you know, calm down sort
of thing. Yeah, those are, if I thought
harder, maybe there is another instance or two or some atypical
behavior popped up. But again, those reactions are
few and far between. I mean, statistically speaking,
over 99% of dogs that we interact with don't have that

(41:24):
sort of reaction. Like they go into flight mode,
they want to leave the snake alone and get on with their day
and and not feel anything, you know, getting close to a
rattlesnake. So yeah, I guess I'm lucky in
that I don't get a whole lot of complicated, you know, training
sessions. Most of them are, yeah.
And we can see a huge variety ofbreeds, ages, temperaments, all

(41:46):
that. And being such a common sense
lesson, I, I think we're lucky in that we get pretty consistent
reactions across the board. Yeah, and I would say your
clients are somewhat self selecting, like you said, you
know, they're they're the peoplethat are looking into this
training. They want to do it.

(42:06):
And we see the same thing. We don't see, you know, crazy
clients see, you know, the the crazy things I hear online, you
know, you watch like a YouTube video of a, you know, a purely
positive trainer with like, you know, saying just some insane
things, right, like about prong collar making the dog attack
kids or whatever. And you know what, what I stress

(42:27):
to, you know, a potential clientis if we could do it all with
positive reinforcement, of of course we would, right?
Like we use a lot of positive reinforcement, but think through
like some obvious examples. I mean, snakes would be a huge
one. Or like, if your dog jumps the
fence and runs away, how are yougoing to use positive
reinforcement to make him not jump the fence?

(42:48):
Like, at some point in time, if he wants to do it, there has to
be some sort of consequence. Like positive reinforcement.
To learn, sit. Yeah.
To learn, come Sure. To learn down, yeah.
Like to learn anything. Positive reinforcement's great.
But at some point in time, if you're not in the yard with him
and your dog jumps the fence andruns away, how are you going to
posit use positive reinforcementto make him not want to jump the

(43:09):
fence? And same with a snake.
So I would love to hear someone tell me how the heck you would
teach a dog to avoid the snake on their own in the wild using
pure positive reinforcement. I just I I can't wrap my head
around how I. Kind of want to I kind of want
to buy the book just to read it and, you know, just to, you
know, even out my perspective a little bit just to hear what

(43:29):
they have to say. But you know, I agree.
I mean, unfortunately, I think life just doesn't work that way
with certain things. And I mean, he just said it.
If you know, dogs going to jump the fence and get hit by a car
or chase after dangerous wildlife, you know, that's
that's a problem. And, you know, this is this is a
training that does a good job ofhelping dogs to at least

(43:49):
understand that rattlesnakes area threat and to to leave them
alone. And that's going to be what
keeps them safe. My guess is with the positive
stuff is, you know, you can might be able to train them to
recognize the scent of a rattlesnake in return to get
paid with a treat, you know, sort of thing if they do pick up
on one. But again, the other reason I
don't love that is a that would take a ton more sessions.
I'm not saying that out of laziness.

(44:10):
It would just take a lot more work.
But more importantly, I don't want the dog to come across a
rattlesnake queue in nature and think, oh, that's that thing I
was taught. I'll get a treat if I avoid
this. If they smell, we want them
turning around and getting out of there, like, like flea, like
avoid the area sort of thing. And so, and that can be the
difference between being bitten or not.
If they if they smell or hear one and they instinctively jump

(44:33):
away from it, that's that's a much better, you know, reaction
than just to walk away back to the owner sort of thing.
So I don't know, I mean, maybe I'm a little naive to what other
methods are out there, but I will say they're so I don't know
much about them. They're so quiet, you know, I
don't hear about them doing really well.
So my guess is they're not working great 'cause if they

(44:54):
were working great, we should have some pretty good
competitors out there that are already doing that.
But I just, I just don't see that.
So I think, I think what we're doing works well and we again,
there was a way to do it with more positive and there's ways
we work in positive reinforcement like you guys
mentioned earlier. The overall training though is

(45:15):
technically would fall under positive punishment.
But yeah, I think for rattlesnakes and again, with the
expense of a horrific vet bill and the pain there, the amount
of pain, the dog, the pain is horrendous with with snake bite.
Unfortunately, I have been bit before so I know first hand what
it feels like. And yeah, it's, it's that little

(45:36):
quick stem and the way that it can convince a dog in one lesson
just makes it so nice and so effective.
And yeah, it's, it's, it's well worth doing.
And it's, again, we're, we're not harsh on any dog.
The goal isn't to scare the heckout of them.
It's just to make sure they havethe wisdom to avoid a
rattlesnake if they find one in the future.

(45:59):
Better to have a day with a little bit of stress than to get
nailed in the face by a rattlesnake, that's for sure.
Yep. So tell me what's the craziest
thing that's ever you mentioned you just got you got bit by
rattlesnake once, but maybe what's the craziest thing that's
happened in your job? Maybe it's that, maybe it's
something different, but give usgive us a Cody Wells.

(46:20):
Story yeah. Is it all that crazy considering
the risk that, you know, I muzzle 2 snakes a day every day,
but well, and I've actually beenbitten twice now in 12 years of
doing this and I'm that is not aI'm not proud of that.
It's not a badge of honor. There's people that think
stories like that or oh, that's cool, you know, survived a
gunshot or whatever. Like now I'm not proud of it at

(46:40):
all, but I did learn a ton from them.
But both of them were just stupid mistakes.
Actually had nothing to do with the dog training.
The very first one I had a sick snake that I was taking care of
and I cut a corner when it came to restraining it properly took
one thing to the right index finger and that was fortunately
a pretty mild bite. My second one was a lot scarier.
That one required a lot of anti venom.

(47:02):
It was very painful and I'm all healed up now.
Everything's fine, I can still do my job and what not.
But that 1 was definitely AI mean.
Both of them were eye openers. But yeah it wasn't fun.
And so anyway, again, those weretaking care of snakes here at
our zoo. Other tasks had nothing to do
with the actual dog training. But yeah, I mean, crazy stories.

(47:26):
I mean, like, it's, I mean, it'shard to top the bite because I
mean, that's definitely, like I said, I learned a lot from it.
I had good emergency preparedness, you know, planning
that, you know, everything went smooth with those bites.
I would argue I got to the hospital quickly, got anti venom
quickly. I got the toxicologist cell
phone number on speed dial, my phone, you know, everything.

(47:48):
Everything went pretty smooth with those.
So I'm grateful for, yeah, good solid medical care that allows
me to keep doing what I'm doing that.
Yeah, I definitely got some fun dog stories.
Nothing majorly comes to mind, but we see all sorts of fun
reactions. I've had dogs that don't like me
in the beginning of the trainingwhen I'm explaining the process
to the owner. And, you know, we get the collar

(48:09):
on the dog and they're not too fond of me.
And by the end of the lesson, they're sitting in my lap to
stay away from the snake sort ofthing.
So it's always, it's always fun seeing.
Yeah, it's my whole. It's a little trick to getting
dogs to. They probably think I'm a dog
whisperer, but the reality is I'm just less bad than the
snake. But.
Yeah, and they're like, I used to hate you, but it turns out I

(48:31):
really hate that other thing. So you're pretty cool.
Yeah. So.
So you said something about a mild bite earlier.
Does that just mean the snake injected less venom or what?
Like was it the type of snake orlike it just didn't sink its
Fang deep? What?
What's that mean? Well.
And you'll this will be a jaw dropper mild bite as in two days

(48:56):
in ICU 14 vials of anti venom $95,000 insurance bill like that
was the mild bite. The worst bite was was double
that in all of those. And so, yeah, my old, so
there's, there's even a process and we're not super familiar
with it, but some of the toxicologists stuff will use

(49:17):
this. There's like a snake bite
severity score where they kind of measure and it's, it
generally correlates to the amount of venom injected.
Not always though. You know, some, if a bite hits
an artery or a vein versus a BLOB of fatty tissue, those are
going to show different symptomsand rate of progression.

(49:38):
You know, of those symptoms, they're going to look a little
different for each of those bites.
So there's a lot of variables. So how much venom was injected
where, where the venom was injected, the, you know, size of
the the dog or human that they're, how great their immune
system is, what type of venoms, whether you know, copperhead
versus rattlesnake, you know, there's a ton of variables.

(49:58):
So my bite was just mild in the sense that I didn't need like a
horrendous amount of anti venom to get my blood work to look
good again. It was, you know, it was
basically a initial dose and then 1/2 dose and that took care
of it. Whereas my second bite, you
know, two days in, I was, I think so first bite was 14 vials
of Anavip, second bite was 25 vials.

(50:20):
First one was actually supposed to be 15, but they broke a vial
when they were mixing the anti venom.
So it's kind of funny, but see like 14 supposed to be 10 and
five or whatever. Like no, it's 14.
They broke a vial. I double checked our bill to
make sure we didn't get billed for that broken vial.
But yeah, and then I'm sure. Your insurance company loves
you. Yeah, I mean, luckily, I mean,

(50:42):
again, we live in Arizona, so snake bites a thing here.
And yeah, they've, they've, theycovered both of them, thank God
'cause I'd, I'd be in pretty baddebt if they didn't.
Yeah, that's wild. Yeah.
Our business insurance years ago, they updated the policy for
the year and they excluded all dog bites.
And as I called the agent, I'm like what?

(51:04):
And they're like, yeah, they don't want to cover and we
hadn't had any claims or anything like this is useless
for me. Like we're a dog training
company. This is our liability insurance.
This is like, this makes no sense.
So we naturally move to a different company, but.
Yep. No, that makes sense.
I should clarify too. It was our our personal health

(51:25):
insurance that covered bites, which as far as I know, snake
bite is always covered under anyhealth insurance, like any
interesting plant. Like, yeah, it's, it's a, it's
a, it's a significant emergency.And as far as I know, yeah, all
major health plans should definitely cover a snake bite.
Doesn't mean you should go out and get bit though.
It's horrible. So on that note, give us a piece

(51:48):
of advice. So people, you know, often ask
me like, what do I do if I see astrange dog, right?
And I'll walk him through. Like if it's trying to attack
you, here's, you know, I'd go crazy on it.
If it's just staring you down, I'd kind of back away, but I
wouldn't take my eyes off it. What's your advice with a snake?
So like, let's say you're hiking.
I'll lay the set, set the scene for you.
You're hiking with your dog. Your dog comes up on a snake.

(52:11):
Maybe your dog's not perfectly trained.
He he hasn't done, you've done no snake training and maybe
their recall's not bulletproof. So your dog is just smelling a
rattlesnake. What do you do?
Do you try to scare a snake away?
Do you act quiet? Like how?
How do you handle a snake? That's a good handle.
The snake or the dog or both? Well, I guess I mean more the
snake because my advice to my client would be, you know, get

(52:33):
your dog a good, you know, a good recall.
And if they say he's doesn't have a good recall, right and
now it's too late, he's by a snake.
Do you just go up and grab the dog and ignore the snake?
You know what's a snake like like?
Yeah, I mean, generally speaking, and that's a common
question. We get like so many people, even

(52:53):
without a dog in the picture. It's like, you know, we come
across a rattlesnake on a trail.What do you do?
Honestly, it's it's as simple asleave it alone.
So obviously it's different if the dog is actively sniffing the
snake or you're right on top of one sort of thing.
But again, they're one of the most misunderstood creatures and
we Hollywood and you know, the news kind of portray them as

(53:15):
these, you know, highly venomous, aggressive chase.
You want to bite you critters. The reality is, I mean, hikers
walk by thousands of rattlesnake, thousands of hikers
walk by thousands of rattlesnakes every year here in
Arizona. And you know, of course you see
this scary news story where thatone person did step on one and
got bit and it's all you know, there's a bunch of hype around

(53:36):
it, which obviously it was very real and unfortunate for that
person. But in reality that they're not
interested in biting us at all. They're not interested in biting
our dogs. They just want to be left alone
and they're they're ambush predators.
And so they spend the majority of their hunting life sitting in
a coiled position or or similar,you know, strategic hunting

(53:57):
position in an area where they smell or predict there might be
some food traffic. So it might be they might smell.
You've ever been on a hike and seen some of those little game
trails? We have like little mini trails
off shooting off from the main trail.
That's often where, you know, small rodents or other wildlife
are just going up and down this well worn path basically.

(54:19):
And rattlesnakes will often comeacross a space like that, smell,
you know, their food items there.
And they will find a strategic spot, coil up, sit there and
they'll wait for hours, days, even weeks if they need to and
just wait for a meal to run right by and some more.
And often when you come across one, that's what they're doing,
is they're just sitting there, you know, anticipating food to

(54:40):
come by. Or if, you know, they're cold,
they might be sitting to warm up.
Or maybe they successfully got ameal and same thing, they're
just trying to warm up to digestit properly.
So they're out for a reason. But it's not to ambush a dog or
ambush a human. We are way too big for them to
eat. We are to them big scary
predators. And so a lot of times I've kind
of noticed if they're sitting coiled, that's actually happened

(55:03):
countless times, by the way, where a customer called us, they
want their dog trained because they were on a trail and they
caught their dog with its nose right on a coiled rattlesnake.
And thank God the dog did not get bit, but they were right
there on top of it. And they think it was an
absolute miracle the dog didn't get bit, which, yeah, it, it
kind of is. But at the same time, it also
shows you they're a lot more forgiving than we think.

(55:23):
Sometimes they feel they're so well hidden that they will
freeze and hope that you don't notice them, including the dogs.
And a lot of times people do just walk right by and they
don't even know it's there. But yeah.
And that's where some dogs have gotten away with sniffing them.
Didn't get bit. Some didn't.
They got close. And the snake did decide to
strike. And the whole rattling thing,
it's kind of across the board. Some give great warning, some

(55:46):
don't rattle at all. I would argue most of them
remain on the quiet side. And so that's where, you know,
rattling is kind of interesting.We think of a rattlesnakes, they
rattle, they spend very, very little of their life actually
rattling. It's it's it's almost like a
last resort sort of warning apparatus that they really just
used to avoid being stepped on for the most part.

(56:08):
But the thing about rattling is it alerts everything in the area
to their position if they do it.And so they would much more
rather sit quiet and go unnoticed.
But if they feel threatened, they they will rattle.
And so basically what I'm getting at is it's, it's across
the board. You'll get snakes that rattle at
you get snakes that are sitting quiet.
And depending on what the snake is doing, it might act one way

(56:32):
versus the other, depending on what it's doing.
So for instance, if it's hunting, it's probably going to
sit quiet most of the time. If it, you know, Arizona sun is
starting to creep up and hittingit too hard and it's getting too
hot now it needs to move. So that snake that might have
been quiet and didn't rattle at a single hiker or dog that
walked by, you know, several minutes earlier, now that it's
moving and crossing the trail, the very next person that comes

(56:54):
up, it feels more vulnerable andthreatened while it was moving
out in the open. And so that might be one that
good, you know, goes ahead and rattles at you with before he
even gets, you know, several feet from it sort of thing.
And so, yeah, they're, they're somewhat predictable if you
interact with them a lot. But but also, yeah, they don't
always rattle and they would much rather go unnoticed and

(57:16):
avoid all conflict, you know, aspossible.
And so, yeah, so if you see one,leave it alone.
And that's kind of the the gist of it.
But if your dog's on top of it, then yeah, that's where you you
can. That's more question for you, I
would say. What would you do?
So what the question I would have would be once again, say
the dog is on, your dog is smelling a rattlesnake, right?

(57:39):
And you're like, oh crap, what do I do here?
And you know, hopefully your doghas a good recall, but let's
assume they don't, right? So if I'm walking up to a dog
that's smelling a rattlesnake, my question would be, am I best
to just grab the dog by the collar and pull it away?
Or as I come up, is the rattlesnake more likely to lash

(57:59):
out because he sees a second thing?
Do I just let it play out? Do I throw a rock at it or, you
know, just scare the snake away?Or does the rock, you know,
instigate it and make it go crazy?
And I I know there's no great answer, but which one of those
sounds the best? Yeah, those, those are good
questions. And definitely don't throw
anything at the snake because yeah, that especially if you hit

(58:20):
it, an injured snake is going tobe a lot more defensive than a,
you know, snake that was sittingcalm initially.
So yeah, definitely don't interact with the snake at all.
As far as the dog goes, you know, that's where every dog in
situation is different, you know, certain personality types.
If you can calmly walk the otherway and get the dog to turn and
follow, that's one reaction. Just screaming at him might be
another. If you can physically grab the

(58:42):
dog and pull them off it withoutgetting in strike range of the
snake, you know, that would be ideal.
You can get control of the dog quickly that way.
So I would say probably of thoseoptions, you know, getting a
hold of the dog, getting that out of there quickly is best.
Now again, doing that at a safe distance, rattlesnakes can
strike, you know, give or take approximately about half their
body length. So now nobody's running around

(59:04):
looking at coiled rattlesnakes and stretching them out with a
tape measure those So it's, you know, it's all estimates
obviously. But in Arizona, the biggest
western Diamondbacks we get, there might be a 5 footer
cruising around out there. Most of them are going to be in
the four foot and under range though.
And so about two feet is technically the, you know, the,
the border of their strike range.

(59:25):
And again, that's don't hold me to the inch there.
There might be a, you know, a gifted athletic one out there
that can go a little farther. You know, the snake sitting on a
slope that can affect it. You might strike a little
farther with gravity helping it out, but general rule half their
body length. So if you can grab the dog
without getting 4 feet from the snake or you know, if if you can
grab the dog within 4 feet or ormore from the snake, that would

(59:48):
be ideal. You're out of strike range and
get a hold of the dog and yeah, just just pull him out of there.
Yeah, hopefully that's do. Snakes care.
What's that? What about noise?
Does snakes care? Like so if you're screaming at
the dog, does that affect the snake at all?
Do they care about noise like that?
No, not so. I mean, they, they don't hear in

(01:00:10):
the same exact sense that we do.I mean the whole like, yeah,
they feel vibrations and things like that.
Yeah, it it's more going to be the the movements and stuff.
Like you can kind of yell whatever you want.
Honestly, I don't think that's going to play a big role.
It might play, it might play a role in your dog's behavior, but
not the snake isn't the snake isn't necessarily going to react

(01:00:31):
to to that, but they are going to react to, you know, movement.
And not to get too nerdy, but rattlesnakes are in a group of
of Vipers called pit Vipers. They have these kind of almost
looks like an extra set of nostrils on the front of their
face. And these are basically orifices
that are extremely sensitive to temperature gradients.

(01:00:52):
They can, they can see essentially they can see heat.
And so, you know, on a 60° day and the sun's just coming out,
if you're on a hike with the dog, you know, we got our 98.6°,
you know, roughly maybe a littlewarmer if we're hiking, you
know, body temperature, you got your dogs, you know, 100,
whatever degree body temperature.
So that snake sees these big, warm, scary objects as a, you

(01:01:13):
know, big mammal, which to them a big mammal is a, is a
predator. It's something they need to
avoid. And so, yeah, big sudden
movements move, you know, to a snake, like a couple, a human
and a dog are like two big scarythings that are very much a
potential threat to the snake. And so they're going to react
far more to, you know, sudden movements and all that stuff.

(01:01:33):
And, and he blasts like, oh, when you see us, do you just
back away slowly or do you run away?
I'm like, well, if you see it, honestly, the danger is over.
You know where it is. Just leave it alone.
You can, you can jump, you can run, you can back away,
whatever. When you're right on top of it,
that's where it gets a little muddier.
You know, do you jump away quickly?
Do you move slowly? Every situation is probably a
little different. And that's where reading the

(01:01:54):
snakes, I don't expect anybody else to know how to do this.
But you know, you can often tellif the if the snake has not
moved at all when you were righton top of it, it's probably
sitting there hoping you don't notice it.
And so you can just step away ata normal pace and you should be
OK. But you know, if it is tongue
flicking or, you know, they often rear their neck up almost
like a turret, they come out of their own coil to get a clear,

(01:02:16):
you know, shot at whatever they're going to strike at.
So if they're starting to rattleor already rattling or even
maybe even not rattling, but yousee them rear up or tongue
flicking rapidly, that that means they're, they feel super
anxious and they might, might actually lunge if you, you know,
move a certain way. But but again, just knowing they
don't want to bite you and they'd rather sit there and go
unnoticed, that's kind of key. There's no reason to panic.

(01:02:38):
So if you see one next to you and it's not doing anything,
just step away. If it's reared up and rattling
you, you want to get away quickly.
It's already feeling very threatened by your presence.
I would say for the average person, if you're able to make
any decision when you're that close to a snake and you're
you're a bad ass, I think the average person you're, you're

(01:02:59):
out of there, right. That's The thing is like I and
usually if I'm finding a snake, I was already looking for him
and I found it and you know, I'mI'm excited to see it.
Most people, you don't have timeto sit there and and make this
for sure. You just react more than often,
which honestly is fine. I mean, we we tend to have an
instinctive reaction toward things like that.
Most of the time it's to back away immediately, which usually

(01:03:21):
is the right choice. I think in the odd chance, And
this has actually happened to meonce the the the goofy like, oh,
I went off the side of the road to pee sort of scenario and I
look down, there's a rattlesnakeright there that actually
happened. That actually happened to me
with a copperhead. But you know, if you're already
next to it, you didn't know it till that last second.
I mean, if the snake wanted to bite, you already would have.

(01:03:42):
So more than often, kind of backing away slowly might be the
best option. But if you jump and back away,
that's fine. I've noticed sometimes too, that
jumping motion is what makes thesnake crank you, but you're
already out of the way by that point, meaning that you jumping.
It's almost like the snake's sense that you noticed it
because all of a sudden you wentfrom relax to reacting and it, I

(01:04:03):
don't know if they cognitively know that, but they just, you
know, your jump reaction is whatstartles them to sort of thing,
but. And trying to not jump would be
would be pretty hard, but you know where.
Where I am, copperheads are a bigger worry than, than
rattlesnakes. And we've got a, a, a big log

(01:04:23):
pile area where there's, you know, tons of, you know, logs
all piled up and there's leaf litter and stuff down there.
So I don't like to go in that area.
I'm a barefoot person, but I don't like to walk around
through there, you know, barefoot and hot summer evening.
It was like we had a fire going with friends over.
I went back there barefoot and Iwas like on edge, right?
I'm like, I don't like being back here.

(01:04:44):
That seems like, you know, the worst choice, but whatever.
So I'm, I'm like on edge. I'm grabbing some wood and I
stepped on a stick and the stickspun and hit me in the back of
the other leg, you know, reasonably hard.
I I jumped faster than I've evermoved in my life.
I was like, yeah, and like leap back.

(01:05:05):
And then of course, like my brain caught up to my what
actually happened and it was just a stick hit hitting me.
But there, there was no even thinking about like, what would
my reaction be? My reaction was to to get out of
there. Yep.
And then, you know, you get thatadrenaline dump and you're just
like standing there with adrenaline running through your
body and like, all right, I'm anidiot.
That's that's what happened here.

(01:05:26):
That's right, it wasn't a copper.
I thought you were going somewhere with a Copperhead
story, so I'm glad it was just astick.
No, no, it was just a stick. So it was a a story of me making
a a silly choice and then terrifying myself.
Yeah, but it was like everythingthat a snake X-ray would
probably say not to do, right? Like walking.
Around buried into the wood pile.

(01:05:47):
Right. And a 85°, yeah, 85° evening
when a copperhead is probably super happy to be lounging right
there and. It's like people here taking out
their trashes and flip flops with no flashlight in the middle
of the night. So.
Yeah, I've heard some crazy stories from our clients in
Phoenix where they'll point out like a flat because I ask them,

(01:06:08):
like, do you see many snakes? And I've had people just like,
point out. They're like, yeah, I've come
out and right here, this flower pot on my front porch, there's a
big old rattlesnake coiled up init.
And that's amazing. So anything new for you?
Yeah. Yeah.
Behind me Anything new for you in this upcoming year?

(01:06:30):
Yeah. So, yeah, actually pertaining to
dog training too. So we actually have a project
going with the University of Arizona right now, veterinarian
is we're actually going to survey all our past customers to
over the last 10 plus years. So we've got there, you know, a
lot of e-mail addresses and datasaved up.
We're going to basically look into how well is this working

(01:06:51):
and hopefully get some actual numbers to to back that.
So that's like a little mini research project that will
hopefully be a springboard to a lot more research because of the
volume of dogs that we do every year.
The goal is she wants to send out some students to start
tracking other info like, you know, or certain breeds, you
know, more interested in the snake than others, you know,

(01:07:11):
going back to that, like hole approaching the snake more than
one sort of scenario or Jack Russell's way more likely to do
that versus others. So anyway, so I'm hoping that
after this survey, we start doing a lot more research and
just looking into just risks associated with certain breeds
versus others. You know, are males or females
more than likely to get in trouble with rattlesnakes?

(01:07:35):
Yeah. How how much training does it
take anyway, looking at a lot ofthat stuff?
So that, that'll be kind of exciting to be able to hopefully
get, you know, published and, and scientific literature and,
and, and, and even for myself, like, see, OK, I hear a lot of
cool success stories, but, you know, I also may have failure
stories that they never told me about sort of thing.
And so it'll be interesting to look into a lot of a lot of that

(01:07:58):
and see what those numbers are. So that's something that's going
on this coming year. That's awesome.
Yeah, we got more exhibits to build here in our Nature Center,
including some other displays. So I never sit still.
There's always something going on, but that's that's it.
I don't want to do a little landscaping to the training area
too. It's it's looking great, but I

(01:08:19):
still want to do more out there.It's amazing, I love the
landscaping out there, it's super cool and I think people
have to see it, you know, to really do it justice.
Do you have pictures on your website?
Yeah, and I, I'll bet they're a little outdated.
I mean, I need to post some new ones cause, you know, a lot of
the, we planted, I don't know, 20 trees in our, our training
area. And you know, a lot of those

(01:08:40):
have, you know, filled in and gotten some size on them and
some other native plants too. So I need to put some updated
pictures. It's a lot more, you know, lush
and natural looking in there now.
But yeah, there there's picturesof within the first year when we
did it, what that looks like. And that's all that on the
Rattlesnake Ready website. So we have a lot of clients that

(01:09:02):
aren't in your area and you know, a lot of our clients
aren't in an area that even has rattlesnakes, but we have a lot
of clients in Austin, a lot in Vegas, you know, other places
that are reasonably close to you.
This the training moves so quickly.
Do you have people come in from out of state?
They'll drive in, do the training, stay in a hotel for
the night, then go home? Yep, absolutely.

(01:09:22):
We've had just off top of my heads, I mean lots of people
from California, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and I
think the farthest 1 I had, I had a lady drive or a couple
drive from I think it was Arkansas and wherever.
I'm pretty sure it was Arkansas.They sent me a really cool video

(01:09:45):
of 2 timber rattlesnakes and twomales fighting in their
backyard, which is, it's where the two snakes kind of looks
like people think it's mating, but it's actually 2 males in
combat. But anyway, yes, we've had
people from several other statescome all the way out here and,
and sometimes it's 'cause there is just no other option in their
area for this training. Other times they just like the

(01:10:06):
way we did it and they wanted tomake a trip out of it.
And yeah, so we've we've had several out of Staters and
hopefully I I I because it's such a short lesson, I kind of
feel bad where it's like, man, this only it really does only
take 30 gish minutes. But I always tell them like,
make sure you like, you know, goto the Grand Canyon or do
something else while you're heretoo, to get get a make a make a
fun trip out of it. But.

(01:10:28):
Yeah. And the fact that it's short is,
is not a bad thing, right? And that's also the, you know, I
have a lot of clients who, you know, I'll travel, you know, to
train dogs. But I always stress to people,
the challenge is you have me come out for a day, I can create
a good plan for you during the day and like we can make some
progress, but we're not going tofully train your dog, right?

(01:10:50):
Like that's not a one day thing.The nice thing is yours can be
done that way. So for all of our clients
listening, I don't recommend people lightly, but Cody's
awesome. So if you're in, we have a lot
of, you know, clients in Floridaas well and you know, Nashville,
if you're worried about this, well worth a trip out there with
your dog because I don't know anyone else who does what you do
on the same scale. I've seen people that train

(01:11:13):
leaders that say they do this, but they're dog trainers that
offer this as a minor service and I know they don't have live
rattlesnakes with things. Yeah, yeah, we completely
specialize in just this. So that's, yeah, there's a
couple others around the country, but yeah, not I think
because of the whole live snake part.
That's the the biggest turn off.That's the biggest turn off to

(01:11:34):
most people. Like I want to love to train
dogs. I don't want to mess with a
rattlesnake though. So yeah, that's where I love
both. So here I am.
It's a it's a very niche thing. There's very few people that
have both those skills. So well, thank you very much for
coming on the show. We're going to have all your
contact info. So for anyone listening that
wants to get some training with Cody, definitely check them out.

(01:11:54):
We'll have links in the description.
But thank you very much, Cody. Appreciate you as always.
This was fun. Yeah, thanks so much for having
me. It was, it was fun to talk about
what I do. It's definitely different.
Someone's got to do it and it's not going to be me, so I'm glad
it's. You.
Well, I'm happy to all. Right.
Take care all. Right.
Thanks so much.

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