Kyle is will give you one of my black mouth curs, you won't have to worry if a snake comes around cause they will raise hell until you shoot it.

After spending hours and days hunting with my dogs, I am almost always able to read their body language when near a snake. I don't know how many times I have been hunting behind my Vizsla and say "there is a snake in there" and be right. I never dispatch a snake in front of the dog BTW. Just "leave it" and move on. My thought on it is from repetition on shooting game a dog's instinct is going to be to hunt what you shoot in front of it.

In anticipation of purchasing a gun dog once I hang these boots up and settle down, I poke my nose in here from time to time to catch up and ask an elementary question or two. I've had dogs before, but I was a lot younger, and they were pets. Never had my own gun dog and certainly never in snake country.

We'll probably end up with a GSP professionally trained for quail (and an occasional dove retrieve) and we'll be living at our place in the panhandle. So far, I'm sold on the rattler vaccine and avoidance classes.

But my wife and I have two younger children (currently 10 and 7 years) and of course I have a great concern for them regarding snake bites. They each have a good pair of chaps and will have snake boots eventually, but wearing them 100% of the time or every time they walk outside isn't very practical. (I saw the pic of the cottonmouth on Wal's porch ).

Here's where I need advice and an azimuth check: While I certainly want my dog to avoid the snake and potential bite, I don't want the dog turning inside out and running and hiding under the truck. I would like the dog to alert me to the snake with a healthy dose of "freak out" but stay in the neighborhood while I get the nearest dose of snake medicine.

I don't want my dog bitten, it's family of course. But I desire much less having my wife and kids bitten. Last November, I killed four rattlers within 24 hours and all within 20 yards of my wife and kids. Two of the rattlers were 15 inch yearlings and one rattled at me from 10 feet away all coiled up in his "strike pose". The largest one, a 4 footer with nine rattles and a button, let me get within 12 inches of him before rattling. There's no telling how many more were around that I didn't see.

I would like a dog trained to avoid being bitten but also able to keep the snake located for me for dispatch.

Are these wants or expectations reasonable? Is it reasonable to ask this of any dog, much less a GSP?

Thanks in advance for entertaining what might be a dumb, long winded question.

We see several rattlers a year while we're hog hunting, and you can usually tell whats there by how the dog acts. They'll perk up for a second until they figure out what it is and then go around it usually. That's indicator enough for us to find it if need be most of the time. I haven't had one yet that was bad to mess with a snake but if and when I do I'll have him boxed up and rolling toward a clinic as soon as I can. I can't imagine that a snake bite vet bill is cheaper than an avoidance class.

Pretty much I just tell my boys that if the dog won't walk there you don't walk there either.

I have one old dog that stays with the kids a lot that will raise cane if he sees a snake and they're around, but that's just how he is. He's one of those once in a lifetime dogs that thinks our kids and property are his responsibility too and I have no idea how you'd train that.