ANIMAL Ark will be conducting snake avoidance training for dogs in Nannup on October 30.
The training teaches our four legged friends to stay away from venomous snake species such as dugites and tiger snakes.
Animal Ark’s trainer David Manning said snake avoidance training has been around for many years overseas, but was relatively new to Australia.
“We have been doing it for a year or two,” he said.
“The numbers of people who have lost dogs is quite phenomenal, so we have a lot of vets supporting the training – it is a growing phenomenon in Australia.”
Mr Manning said the approach he used involved a low-level static correction collar and containers with different species of snakes within them.
“We live in a very visual world, we see things,” he said.
“But dogs just sense with their nose and are very attuned to odours.
“So we lead a dog on a lead and see if it is interested in a particular box, within which we have one of the venous snakes.”
Mr Manning said snakes smell differently – a tiger snake has a different odour to a brown snake like a dugite.
“If the dog shows an interest in that odour and approaches the snake, then it gets the short correction,” he said.
“It is a bit like if you reach out and touch a cactus – you go ‘ouch’, and then you do not do it again.”
He said visual cues were also incorporated into the training.
“For the visual cue we use a non venomous python, but it is very important that we do use the venous snakes that the dogs are likely to come across,” he said.
“They are basically in a container where the dogs can smell the snake but the dogs cannot get bitten by the snake and the dog cannot harm the snake.”
The wildlife specialist said as the weather heated up it was also important that people tried to minimise log piles and rubbish piles near the home, and to keep grass around the perimetre of a property short (as snakes do not like crossing open ground).
“If you have aviaries or chooks, try to keep those away from the dwelling because the waste and the seed of the chooks or your birds will often attract snakes,” he said.
“And of course, generally in bushland areas keep your dog on a lead.”
To book or for more information visit animalark.com.au, call 0466 688 188 or email info@animalark.com.au.