dog in Santa Fe - hiking/safety question (appointed, live)

[providence]

We will spend two months in Santa Fe this summer with our dog (Lab). Any advice on dog parks in Santa Fe? Any concerns if we take him hiking off-leash, e.g., poison left out by farmers for coyotes, etc.

I appreciate any advice and thank you.

[_yb]

You should see a sign like this one if you are out hiking and run into an area were M-44 cyanide guns are placed.
You probably won't see any of these signs unless you are on private land.





I think rattlesnakes would be a bigger problem to an untrained off leash dog.

Not sure on the dog parks in the Santa Fe area.

good luck.

[providence]

Appreciate the feedback and photograph. The dog is field-trained and has excellent recall. After I read your email I scheduled an appointment with the trainer to specifically work on avoidance of snakes (something we don't deal with in New England).

Question: What method did you use to train your dog(s) to avoid snakes?

Thank you again.

[mike0421]

I went hiking last year in Hyde Park, and it was just beautiful, no worries at all. There were plenty of leashed dogs on this hike as well.

[TKO]

Originally Posted by providence

Appreciate the feedback and photograph. The dog is field-trained and has excellent recall. After I read your email I scheduled an appointment with the trainer to specifically work on avoidance of snakes (something we don't deal with in New England).

Question: What method did you use to train your dog(s) to avoid snakes?

Thank you again.

Not sure about Santa Fe, but down here trainers use a defanged rattler and do aversion training with that. My Britt didn't attend and it cost me about 1K to fix her up. The training was significantly cheaper than that. I HIGHLY recommend it.

[Scholar]

We recently visited Santa Fe with dogs, and we were very disappointed with a dog park in town. Horrible, weeds, broken glass and too unsafe to let dogs out of vehicle. Perhaps we were there at a bad time. There were no other dogs using the park, though, which was our first warning. I have seen a good review of the park, but at best I can only advise you to walk around a little before letting your dog set foot at the park.

[_yb]

Live defanged rattler and a shock collar.

[InTheDesert]

You know they have a rattlesnake vaccination now for dogs but I've never run into any problems when hiking up in Santa Fe with my dogs, maybe other people have? I never seen a snake on a trail up there.

[BrianH]

My dog got bitten by a Bull Snake, tahts the only training hes had to avoid em.

[Steve-o]

There are also classes for dogs that teach them to avoid rattlesnakes. Pretty neat.

InTheDesert... you might not have seen them, but theyve seen you! MUHUHAHAHA LOL WDBs are very cryptic, hardly visible 1/2 the time. There were times I would come within 2-3' of them before theyd sound a warning. Had they not rattled, I would have walked right past them, never noticing them (unless one bit me of course).