Here's all about the Snakes that make Snake School possible!

SnakeSchool.com is a division of Southeastern Reptile Rescue. We are licensed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources which allows us to possess and work with the reptiles that are in our care. State officials inspect our facility on a regular basis and require documentation and up to date records of our animals. The snakes we use for this training are non-releasable animals that are rescues and have come to us from many different situations. The number of snakes at our facility fluctuate between 100 and sometimes up to 300 individuals. This allows for the regular rotation of snakes that are used in our training sessions. Once a training session is complete, those snakes are returned to our facility where they remain off display and out of use for two to three weeks but often longer. Routine medical care such as worming, anti-biotic injections if needed, are usually done in house. For other check ups or when more in depth medical care is warranted, they are transportd to our veterinarians office for a visit. (Yes, some vets will see reptiles and even venomous snakes. Here's our vets info as well as a list of others that may be able to help your pet reptile if the need arises). Because we are located in the Southeastern United States, the snakes we use in our training sessions are Copperheads, Cottonmouths, Rattlesnakes and at least one non-venomous species. 

During training sessions, the venomous snakes are contained in one of a kind enclosures that were specifically designed for this training. Here are three things these enclosures do.

1. Snake Safety: They protect the snakes by securing them in a safe environment that does not allow any physical contact to take place between the snakes, the dogs and the dogs handler as they participate in the training.

2. Dog & Handler Safety: The enclosures keep the dogs and the people safe. These enclosures are "double screened" which prevents a snake from making any type of contact with a dog or person. This enclosure is basically an enclosure inside another enclosure that is also secured under lock and key. Since our venomous snakes are fully intact as in, we do not remove fangs, venom glands, suture mouths shut or alter the snakes in any way, these precautions must be taken.

3. Scent Transfer: These enclosures are designed to safely get your dogs nose very close to the snakes which allows for maximum scent detection. Because the sense of smell has the strongest tie to memory, this is extremely important. A dogs sense of smell triggers memory on a far greater level than anything they ever see or hear. The part of the dog's brain that processes smell is forty times larger in dogs than in humans. This gives dogs the ability to remember a particular scent for many, many years.

If you have additional questions, call us and we'd be happy to speak to you.
404-557-2470

Back to Snake School