Ah, springtime in the Sky Islands. A time of returning hummingbirds, blossoming succulents, warmer days and … rattlesnakes.
Most of our local rattlers possess a neurotoxic venom that is lethal to man and beast alike, so they are to be avoided at all cost. We humans — well, at least most of us — naturally give rattlesnakes a wide berth when we encounter them, but dogs can sometimes see a snake as a toy, a challenge or even a danger that needs to be disposed of. This exposes our canine friends to possibly fatal bites or, at the very least, some real physical trauma. And it exposes dog owners to a big emotional hit, as well as the inevitable bill for emergency veterinary treatment.
Enter Sonoita resident and dog trainer Jill Cruz. After 20 years in civil service, Cruz calls her current endeavor a “happy accident.” Looking for something to do, and possessing a love of dogs, she began to volunteer at animal shelters, working with the “incarcerated” dogs. As she acquired more experience as a dog trainer, she saw a need in the Southwest to help with people whose dogs were in danger of being bitten, and focused on adding snake avoidance training to her repertoire.
Cruz related an incident from a woman who was walking her snake-trained dog on a trail. The dog stopped and refused to proceed down the trail, so the woman got in front of the dog to pull it along. The woman was bitten by the rattler that the dog was trying to avoid.
“Venomous snakes have their own scent and some dogs can tell the difference in the snakes,” Cruz said. “My dogs are snake trained and I’ve had one of them bring me a gopher snake!” Apparently he knew the difference, but it was still a bit of a surprise.
Employing shock collars and timing learned from years of experience, Cruz takes dogs and their owners through a series of progressive snake encounters, starting with the snake’s scent, progressing to the rattler’s sound, and then on to actual exposure to the live snakes. This is where the expertise of Cruz’s snakewrangler friend Cassandra Grogan — and Grogan’s snakes — help to complete the training experience.
Grogan, a resident of Marana, has been in the snakewrangling business since 2017.
“I was always a weirdo kid and liked the creepy-crawlies,” she said. Her first rattlesnake encounter happened as a 10-year-old in Yuma, when a rattler turned up in their backyard. Grogan pleaded with her father not to harm the snake, so together they improvised a tool attached to a long stick, caught the snake, placed it in a bucket, and released it in the desert. Little did she know that years later this would be her vocation.
Possessing 16 snakes of her own, some of them venomous, Grogan has developed the skills to manage these adrenaline-triggering reptiles with ease. This is especially important as she needs to muzzle — yes, muzzle — the snakes who are going to be used in the training classes for the dogs, as some are released in the training area and only managed with a hooked snake stick. Muzzling a snake, she says, takes two people: “One to hold the snake and the other to use a special piece of equipment on a long stick to place the muzzle on the snake.”
Grogan is currently in the process of developing a better muzzle that causes less stress and is more comfortable for her charges. She very seldom uses her personal snakes for the dog training classes. “I don’t want to stress them out and prefer to use wild caught snakes,” she explained.
As a private contractor with Tucson-based Animal Experts Inc., Grogan is frequently called to catch and remove problem wildlife, especially rattlesnakes, from private property. That is where she usually gets her rattlers for the classes. “I like them feisty,” she said, as they are more reactive to being disturbed by the dogs as they go through the training process. After using them a time or two, she releases them in the wild, away from any developed property.
The partnership between Cruz and Grogan has been a positive venture for the community. Both aim to help dogs and their owners avoid tragic outcomes.
“I wish everybody would do this training. It sucks to have a dog bitten,” Cruz said.
Prime season for rattlesnakes is generally from March to September, so now is the time to have your dog trained. For more information, contact Jill Cruz Dog Training at jillocruz@yahoo.com or 832-216-5875.