Dogs who aren't familiar with rattlesnakes might not know the distinctive rattle means danger.
That's where Get Rattled comes in, with a multi-step training.
"The first station ... is a live rattlesnake out in the open to make that first encounter as natural as possible," said John Potash, the owner of Get Rattled. "We walk the dog in. We don't give any commands. We want them to just engage naturally on their own. When they do, they get a correction from the e-collar."
Then the trainer takes the dog to another live snake in a cage disguised as a bush.
After a few more stations, the owners call their dog - and they must avoid the snake in the process.
Keith Sluyter has put both his dogs through the training. Sierra Rose has done it for two years, and Scout for five.
He said it's been even better than advertised.
"Even at home, if they see a non-threatening garter snake, they'll certainly avoid it. Sometimes a squiggly line on the road will get them to alert," Sluyter said.
All three of Amanda Hoffman's dogs trained for the first time this weekend. She said avoiding snake bites is the big reason she's here.
"I work in the veterinary field, too. We have been seeing a lot of rattlesnake bites already this year for dogs," Hoffman said.
The main goal is to get dogs to avoid snakes. But some of man's best friends take it a step further, like one dog Potash saw earlier this year.
"It was a Great Pyrenees [that] came in for a retrain," he said. "They said three months after the training, they heard the dogs barking his head off from the back yard. They went back there and he had herded all of their sheep up against the house and was pacing back and forth, keeping them there, barking at a snake in the yard."
However they respond, over 150 dogs will now be snake-safe after this weekend.
"Get Rattled" offers multi-step dog training.
