Don't Always Shoot the Snake!!

[TxHuntermn]

Tragic evening on this Monday. We were having an early season quail expedition at a friends deep South Texas ranch. We had put up a really nice covey, and three shooters took four birds on the rise. Really thick "cactus-ey" , cover. The handler let out two labs and three English cockers, in addition to the two pointers that were on the ground. The horde of dogs were with myself and the property owner looking for our three birds, when the third shooter, who was about 80 yards to our right, fired a shot. The retrievers, (the cockers and labs) hauled ass over there to get what they thought was a freshly shot bird, and surrounded the other hunter. He had killed one little rattlesnake, and was in the process of reloading to shoot the other two there with the first one, when the dogs surrounded him. It was really hot, and windy, and the dogs in their excitement did not scent the snakes. Cookie, our hosts 15 lb cocker took a strike in the ribcage, and was dead within 30 minutes, even with antivenin being administered within 5 minutes and a shot of dex, and a good icing down. Cookie was 11, and an incredible dog, with well over 2000 retrieves. She was also the dog that went home with our host to his family every trip out.

Moral of the story, after 40 plus years of handling dogs ,and hunting wild quail, both our host and myself made the mistake of assuming the third shooter knew what to do in that situation. We did not do the perfunctory "rules talk" prior to setting out.

When you encounter a poisonous snake, particularly when retrieving dogs are on the ground, yell SNAKE!!! so the dog handler, and the other shooters, know what the situation is, and make every effort to keep yourself between the dogs and the snake, until the dogs are either kenneled, or at least have hands in their collars, before shooting the offending reptile. Retrievers in particular are going to go to a gunshot. In this case the hunter did kill the little snake he was shooting at, but there were two more there, and he knew it. In the case of a big single snake, unless you tear his head from his body with your shot, that snake is still VERY capable of delivering a lethal bite. I have seen rattlers with the last third of their length missing, make solid strikes on dogs and snake boots. I have also seen a dog pick up a snake head, cut from the snakes body, and take one in the mouth.

Sorry to get on my soapbox. This is the worst time of year for snakes down here, and a cool head in a tense situation can save a dogs life.


Me and Cookie from a hunt there a couple of years ago.

RIP Cookie