Happy M-Day and Rattlesnakes :)


Happy Mothers Day to all of you Moms out there. I hope that you are all spoiled wrotten on this day.

Yesterday we took the dogs for a run in the canyon; typically my husband runs the dogs on the weekend, but I joined them yesterday. It was a bit warm and as you all know I don't like the heat but we were out of there before it really heated up. Surprisingly it is hotter down in the canyon than out of the canyon. It seems like it should be cooler down there; well at least to me is seems like it should be. I guess I'm thinking back to my Cdn days when a venture down into a ravine meant cooler temps.

Rattlesnake weather is upon us, hot sunny days for them to bask their bodies in. I have seen one rattlesnake since living here and it turned out to be a pretty cool experience. Only because I did not recieve the bite that the snake had been threatening me with. I was on a shoot; I was at the edge of the canyon waiting for the sun to rise for the fabulous "sunrise" shot. I took a step to the left and heard a noise that I had never heard before. It took just a split second for my brain to register; a rattlesnake.

There are warnings everyone near the canyons but this morning I wasn't even thinking; snake. I froze in position; brought my camera down from my face and slowly looked around. There was a curled up rattlesnake not 6 inches from my foot. It looked like a smaller snake which apparently is a better likelihood of being bitten. I stood my ground and hoped that the snake would move away. I was in no way thinking of moving my foot away.

It lasted maybe a minute; which at the time seemed like a lifetime. It slowly slitered away while maintaining its threatening rattle. Whew. The only other rattlesnake experience I have had here was with a snake skin. I use to take the dogs to a canyon side open space weekly until they transformed the space into an actual park. The dogs were running free and I was enjoying the freedom of having them run free. When we saw something in the grass; I approached at the sametime that Luke approached it to investigate. He got within three feet of it and flew back like someone had startled the pants off of him.

I changed my slow pace to a quick run when I came upon the culprit of Luke scare. It was a snake skin; it was a big one, probably 2 1/2 feet in length. I have never snake trained my dogs; I've heard about it and know the basic idea behind it but never done any training myself. How did Luke know that this was a bad thing? It was not moving; it lay there as dead as it was.

I never touched the skin; each and everytime we were at the park Luke responded to the skin in the same way. He knew it was dangerous but how, I do not know. Maybe it is built in with some dogs; both Tilley and Jessie did not have the reaction that Luke did. But I do think that Luke is amazingly intelligent; he may seem like a big goofy blonde but there is alot more in that head than it appears.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Love to hear from you.