[Dailydrool] Bridge crossing and snakes

[Swartz]

We are so sad to hear that The mighty Frank the Tank and Hector have both made their journeys to the bridge.  Heart healing drool is being sent out from Colt & Ruger to their families. May they live forever in the magic of your memories. 

Healing drool to anyone or hound that is sick or injured. The boyz are hitting the chicken jerky in order to send out chicken drool to help heal what ailes you. 

We live in the Gulf coast of Florida, luckily in town so the majority of our snakes are gardner snakes. The posionous snakes usually don't like the heavily populated areas, to many things to disturb them, think of them as hermites or loners.  Plus most of them eat mice or rats, so unless you have a lot of those around you shouldn't have very many posionous snakes.  But if the hurricane hits, it always drives the other snakes up to dryer ground. We have Rattlers, water moccasians, corals, and I believe cotton mouths around here. A water moccasian is not to be toyed with, they will chase you just to bite you.  Rattlers just want to be left alone, so as long as they don't feel threatened they will leave you alone...they will give you a warning rattle to get you to back off. Unless of course you startle them, by stepping on them or something to that nature. Adult rattlers can control their venom and usually...only release it if you are small enough for them to eat or only give enough venomon to give them time to get away.  Most rattlesnakes bites are what is called a dry bite. But like any other animal bite needs to be treated because of the bacteria and other cooties in animals & humans mouthes that can cause a serious infection. Now baby rattlers are a different story as they can not control their venom and release all they have of it with every bite.  Baby rattlers are more deadly because of this than adults.   However....none of this changes that fact that if you or your dog gets bitten, you need to get to a doctor and fast, because you don't know if it was a dry bite or not.  Try to identify the snake as best you can, phone cameras are great for this,  so that you can tell or better yet show the doc what type of snake it was so that they can administer the proper antivenom.  Also note, that a dead snake can still bite you or your pet!!! Even a dead snake whith the head cut off, the head can still bite!  The nerves for the bite reflex are very strong and can live for a long time even after the body is dead or seperated from the head!  Make sure that the snake is cold and dead before you go messing with it...or better yet...don't mess with it!  Unless with very long tongs, shovel or something that keeps you a safe distance from the snake.

Dogs that go after snakes: I saw an episode of the Dog Whisper where he had a case of a dog that would hunt snakes in a rattle snake infested area.  To train the dog not to do this he used a shock collar.  Now I hate these things!!! But in this case, a possible life and death issue. I see the value in it.  Especially trying to curb a hunting dogs instinct to hunt.  And I was shocked (no pun intended) to see Ceaser use it...I've watched alot of his shows and this was the only time I ever saw him use a shock collar.  But he had a professional snake handler bring out a rattler in a plexi-glass box, set it down in a natural enviorment for the snake (still in the box) the box had air holes in it for the snake to breath and for the dog to be able to smell it. Every time the dog went near the snake and it would rattle, they shocked him. At first at the lowest electrical setting and gradually upping the voltage until the dog would turn and walk away from the snake the moment it started rattling.  They did this several times, using different locations for the snake, after 3 or four times the dog would smell the snake, and turn around and go the other direction...before the snake ever felt threatened and would give the warning rattle...no shock for doggie equals no snake bite either.  Like I said I don't like shock collars but in extreme cases, or in cases I have tried every other avenue to break a dog from doing something that could be dangerous, I would use it.  Like hunting posionous snakes, chasing cars, etc.  I've never had to use a collar but I have had to use an electric fencing to keep a hound inside the fenced yard to keeping him from going to visit the moo cows down the road. I tried everything that I could think of, talked to dog trainers too, nothing kept this hound in and the Farmer thought that he was chasing the cows and threatened to kill him.  I hated it, but sometimes you have to do those things in order to keep a stubborn hound safe.

Love and drool to all
Michele Momma to the Bad A** Basset Brothers Colt & Ruger

Women are Angels...And when someone breaks their wings..They simply continue to fly....on a broomstick...They are flexible like that...
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