ALONG THE WAY

along the way Twice ALMOST-BIT and Other Reasons to 'SNAKE-PROOF' a Desertdwelling Dog

THE SUDDEN RUCKUS IN MY LIVING ROOM deafened me. Rushing in, I saw the two formidable foes primed for action: my lovable rottweiler-140 pounds of muscle lunging to get out, fur raised, ears back, massive paws grazing the living-room window; and the visitor-its narrow head pressed against the outer glass, yellowish eyes almost glowing, forked tongue flicking, scaled body powerfully thrashing from side to side. Plaintive yelps punctuated Rimba's thunderous barks as he begged to be let outside to meet the huge rattlesnake looming at our window.

The western diamondback, tightly coiling its substantial body, kept hissing and intensified its rattling, sounding similar to bacon frying just inches away. In nearly three decades of desert dwelling, I'd seen rattlers-but only from a distance. I'd never broken their reptilian rule: Don't mess with me, and I won't incapacitate you. Now, I eyed the snake with frightened fascination: its translucent, segmented rattle, the muted diamond designs of its scales. Visions of its fangs mesmerized me most, like my childhood monster dreams.

Paralyzed with panic, I hadn't realized yet that, with one solid leap, my canine Schwarzenegger could smash through the window and land on the diamondback's coils. I snapped to my senses and dragged my struggling dog into another room to wait for the snake to lose interest and slither from the field of battle. Five, 10, 15 minutes we waited as my muscles cramped with tension. The snake sounds persisted. Could they be getting even louder? Peering around the corner, I found the fellow trying to squirm indoors through a crevice. I called the fire department. The firefighters soon coaxed the rattler into captivity and assured me it would be released into a distant desert.

I never expected another face-to-fang meeting, so without qualms another evening I let my dog outdoors to do his thing. Minutes later, we heard a peculiar buzz/swish sound from the yard. Must be a broken sprinkler, we thought. We opened the door to find the dog nearly nose to nose with a rattler. Coiled with head lifted high, the snake held its ground, sounding a loud prestrike buzz as Rimba leaned tentatively forward.

Luckily, my boyfriend pitched the pooch safely inside before turning to face the snake. He scooped it into a bucket and deposited it somewhere beyond our property line.

I knew then that I had to "snake-proof" Rimba. Ann Austin has been teaching dogs to respect rattlers for the past 14 years. Dogs can be trained to use their noses to find corpses under water, to sniff out sea-turtle eggs concealed by smugglers and to detect explosives, drugs, even cancer. Dogs also can instantaneously detect rattlers, whose odors differ dramatically from other snakes. Austin builds on this ability, combined with the negative reinforcement of harmless electrical shocks.

At Austin's Carefree home, Rimba was outfitted with a shock collar. He marched me merrily around the premises before moseying toward a wire-mesh cage of rattlesnakes. He was inches from them when a shock from the collar jolted him. As the poor boy fled in fear, Austin told me to console and praise him for leaving the treacherous scene. True to her word, one shock was enough. It made him think he'd been bitten by the snake, and the trauma, combined with a rattler's distinctive odor, convinced him to steer clear. He galloped to the car and begged to go home.

The lesson stuck. During the second and final class, he caught the scent of rattlesnakes hidden in some bushes and adamantly refused further exploration.

Don't expect your snake-proofed dog, however, to protect you from rattlesnakes. The training conditions dogs to avoid rattlers altogether, rather than to challenge them, so he'll skedaddle at the first whiff of rattler. Just stay attuned to his body language. When you spot the snake-warning behavior-nervous lip-licking, lowered head, tail drooping between the legs-simply leave the scene and congratulate yourself for furthering peace among all concerned. After all, who couldn't use a little less stress these days? AH