By Kevin Foster
I recently heard of a couple dogs in our area, including a Coast Guard Commander’s dog, getting bit by rattlesnakes. Unfortunately, the Commander’s dog did not survive. With the recent skyrocketing of calls to us at Native Animal Rescue due to rattlesnakes, I reached out to Jake with Snake Out to try to secure training up here in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Funny thing is when I reached out to him a month ago, we were planning on setting up training for the end of October. When I reached back out to him, he replied that Fish and Wildlife says the Rattlesnake Avoidance Training courses in California are illegal. The classes are against the law due to using native rattlesnakes. Snake trainers are only allowed to use non-native rattlesnakes in California. What’s remarkable is Fish and Wildlife has turned a blind eye for the last 30 years because Rattlesnake Avoidance Training classes have been going on in multiple states including California for over three decades.
Get Rattled is one of the other rattlesnake handlers that offers the training, and he trains over 1000 dogs a year. Snake Out trains 3 to 400 dogs a year to avoid rattlesnakes. Multiply those times 30 years and that’s a lot of dogs saved from snake bites. So I reached out to Jake recently for a brief interview and here’s the gist of it.
(( We live to do the rattlesnake avoidance class for dogs. It has been shown to be safe and supported by the vets, police personnel, fire departments and the public. The training is a safer alternative to the “vaccine.” The “vaccine” has not shown clear effectiveness in labs and many vets recommend the rattlesnake avoidance training. People have been doing this class for nearly 40 years in the state and loved it with zero intervention from CDFW.
However, recent changes in management and enforcement has led to negative consequences for snake aversion classes.
CDFW does not want native rattlesnakes used due to the risk of “commercialization.” However, do they accept the use of albino native rattlesnakes? They also accept the use of non-native rattlesnakes, which is illegal without difficult to acquire permits.
Therefore, to continue doing the class, snake aversion companies will be forced to use albino rattlesnakes or difficult to acquire non-natives. CDFW has said there is NO legal way to use native snakes and no permit available. You just cannot do it.
The albino snakes are effective for smell and sound. According to dog trainers we work with, visually the snakes may appear brighter, but the class should still work.
However, this still creates issues as there is no legal way or permit available to use native snakes in the areas for snake aversion training for dogs.
There is further, the issue that many native snakes do not have or have extremely difficult to buy albino forms. Many of these species are not bred commonly so their albino forms are rare or extremely expensive in the $500-1200 range.
This is a big issue for snake aversion classes. The classes are in this gray area along with most reptile regulation in the state. ))
Thankfully, Jake is willing to use his own snakes for continued training due to multiple first responder agencies and mass population of community members in need of this training.
So if you find this type of training extremely valuable, write to Fish A Wildlife in Sacramento and kindly request for them to figure out a way to allow this important training to be available. It saves hundreds of dogs’ lives each year.
