R.A.T

today was the big day.

Rattlesnake Avoidance Training.

We went to Penasquitos Canyon and Mom said I needed to pay attention to a special training I was about to receive.

When I got there, I got to go with this nice guy named Eric. He put a funny collar on me, and at first I was a little nervous...but pretty soon I forgot about it and just had fun hangin out with him.

Mom got to look in this bucket, and guess what she saw! It was a bucket of snakes!

At first, Eric walked me over to a small snake on the ground. It was just a baby, and because of that it din't have it rattle fully developed. Mom says that makes them even more dangerous that adult rattlesnakes. 1) because you can't hear em warning you before they bite, and 2) because they are still babies they don't know how to control the amount of venom they inject and that usually means the bite is worse and can give you more sickies.

At first, I was super curious about the little wiggly thing on the ground.  It was kinda cute and I thought it might wanna be friends, so I went over to investigate. OUCH! It took me a couple more times investigating before I figured out that the lil thing crawlin on the ground was making me feel ouchies! After that, I totally steered clear!

Once I learned that lesson, I was more cautious. Eric then took me over by a fence where a snake skin was laying. Just the smell of it was enough to make me nervous! We quickly left that area and moved on towards a rock. Suddenly, a strange rattling sound came out of the rock. Plus, it smelled just like that baby and the snake skin! I wanted nothing to do with it!

Lastly, I was introduced to this guy. All the snakes had these Hanibal Lector type masks on to protect us doggies from an actual bite. Boy were they scary!

You can watch the video here. As soon as I figured out that snakes are scary and you should stay away, I no longer needed any corrections from Eric. I learned real quick that the best thing to do is give a bad scary snake as much room as they want! My training was even interrupted at one point by a doggie that had gotten loose. Actually, his dumb owner just let him jump out of the car and come over to see what was going on. She sure wasn't very smart!

Murphy's Mom here....

Murphy did REALLY well at today's training. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be! I have to say, I am really glad I did this..and if anyone lives in areas where there are rattlesnakes or other venemous snakes, I highly recommend going thru a training like this.