This actually happened during yesterday’s walkie but I forgot about it till just now. If I’d known it was going to happen I’d have put his shock collar on and set it to Barbecue Dog.
Instead I just waited till he crept forward for a sniff and then really sharply yelled at him. Already not sure this was a smart thing to do, he teleported about fifty yards straight back. It was a cool moist early-Monsoon morning and this poor snake was inert: Tobie could have eaten it without danger of harm, but I didn’t want him to know that.
I already knew he’s not reliably snake averse, but there’s been a shortage of good snakes to test him on.
I’ve only personally known two dogs who got rattlesnake-bit. They both survived but one went through some truly grotesque symptoms while we rushed her to the vet (we no longer have a vet so close) and I’m pretty sure she would have died without immediate treatment. The other was just sick and sad for a evening but he really didn’t get a good strike: Rattlesnakes are as fallible as anybody else.
Anyway, I’d be much happier about letting Tobie run free if I thought he wouldn’t try to be friends with the first Mojave Green he encountered…
Mojave Green sounds like a name for a pleasant retirement community or perhaps a bitchin’ mellow strain of Maryjane. Then I googled it. Oh. My. I hope Tobie knows how lucky he is to have you as his caretaker.
Scared that poor cold bull snake to death I bet.
That is the sort we encourage around here cuz they keep the packrats down and the rattlers move along somewhere else before we can trim the front 6 inches off of them.
Bull snakes repel rattle snakes?
That’s what people say. Never knew if it’s true, but then I’ve also never seen examples of the two near each other so I guess it could be true. It’s definitely true that bull snakes are beneficial without being dangerous and you can’t say the same for rattlesnakes.
I’m not sure they outright repel them, but they seem to eat the same food (baby mice, baby packrats, baby birds, reptile and bird eggs, etc.) In the desert there is never a real surplus of any of these (except where you don’t want them like in under the hood of your car.) So if something is eating the food supply down, the other snakes will move on in search of better pickings. When we have resident bull snakes the rattlers fade to a dull roar (6 or so a year). If we aren’t seeing the bulls, we have had as many as a dozen a year. The change is significant enough we noticed it after just a few years in the house (25 now).
Or maybe the bull snakes just repel them like the old timers always said…
Either way works for me.