Rattlesnake Ready

I did the training about 5 months ago now with my dog after having moved down to Arizona. The trainers were great. I'll admit at first after leaving I was wondering if my pooch was more shell shocked by the shock collar or if she learned something from the training as during the final piece of training she wanted nothing to do with anything and basically froze in place. Fast-forward to last night....Was out in the back yard letting the dog out before going to bed. It was at night, fairly windy, and some distance lightning and thunder with a storm blowing in so a lot of distractions going on. The pooch was sniffing around the edge of the property and all of a sudden came the loud rattle of a rattlesnake. She immediately jumped back and came barreling to me and the door inside. I was shocked. I had hoped the training worked but it's pretty difficult to tell in the initial training and without running into a snake in the wild. And this wasn't a "being startled" by an unknown sound thing. She's a big, very forward dog. The sound of the rattle didn't phase her at all initially at the training. I can say, unequivocally that the training works. You will probably be like me and wonder (as you drag your shell-shocked dog out of training) was it just the shock collar or was something actually learned. I can safely say with my dog, the training worked.