Meet Your Trainer
Professional Rattlesnake Avoidance Dog Trainer.
& Snake Safety Officer for Film & TV
Founder of The Snake School — a better 12-station rattlesnake avoidance dog training program.
& Snake Safety Officer for Film & TV
Founder of The Snake School — a better 12-station rattlesnake avoidance dog training program.
Not a quick clinic. The full 12-station course, run one-on-one by a professional trainer and real rattlesnake handlers — built to make avoidance stick.
Scent, sight & sound — every sense trained on its own.
3–4× the time of a quick clinic. Every sense proofed.
Live rattlesnakes, always securely caged. Never muzzled.
Your dog learns to turn away before it ever sees the snake.
A permanent course in Bouquet Canyon, sessions nearly every weekend.
If your dog needs more work, come back at no cost.
A multi-person team uses a low-level e-collar to eliminate curiosity and overcome prey drive toward snake scent, sight, and sound — paired with high praise to train the dog to turn around and avoid the danger.
A trainer and an assistant work every dog together, using the bare minimum level on one of our 3 sizes of e-collar — no dogs are ever harmed.
Together, we walk a permanently built course at our training ranch — a series of stations that each isolate one sense at a time, like sound or scent, building up to stations with multiple live snakes. Dogs are taught that snakes are "bad," and that keeping maximum distance from them is the only solution. We rely on R+ and P+ methods of operant conditioning to successfully snake train nearly all dogs.
We train your dog on the actual scent of a live rattlesnake — musk, shed skin, and cloacal secretions carried straight from the caged snake — not a urine- or feces-soaked substrate, the easier, faked signal some programs use. So a hidden snake gets detected and avoided by smell, before your dog ever sees or hears it — trained across two stations, with proofing.
As your dog approaches, we play adult and baby rattlesnake sounds — isolated, real recordings — through a hidden Bluetooth speaker — training isolated recognition and avoidance of the rattle itself. So even when your dog can't see or smell the snake, they still learn to turn away on sound alone.
For the sight stations we use muzzled non-venomous gopher snakes — both large adults and babies — so your dog learns to recognize snakes of every size and can walk right up to one on the ground, with zero risk. The rattlesnakes always stay caged. There's no such thing as a safe muzzled rattlesnake.
Your dog encounters four live rattlesnake stations — adult, juvenile, and baby, every one securely caged — building to the final den: a cluster of live rattlesnakes coiled together, securely contained, with no prompts, no cues, no corrections. When your dog turns and walks away on its own, this isn't training anymore. It's instinct.
Between the real snakes, we seed the course with decoys — a coiled hose, scattered sticks — and mimic-stations paired with treats. Your dog learns to read shape and movement, stays relaxed, and finishes the course food-motivated and confident.
In the News
The Signal
October 5, 2026
“Beware. Rattlesnake Activity is On the Rise”
“I highly suggest rattlesnake avoidance classes for dogs … especially for hikers and people that live up by the hills.”
— Cary Quashen, Santa Clarita’s “snake sheriff”
“Almost every snake that I go to, I would say over 50% is found by the dog. I can name over 70 dogs that have been bit this year that I know of.”
Read the article in The Signal →Real feedback from dog owners who trained with us — recapped from their post-training debriefs.
Featured on The Signal, KTLA, New York Post, CBS & KHTS
Your dog will avoid rattlesnakes primarily by scent — and will also run if they hear or see a snake.
A same-year refresher is included with purchase — an annual refresher is recommended after that. It's the maximum length course we can run without traumatizing your dog — giving them the most complete training available.
Scott has over 10 years of dog training experience. This year alone, he's professionally rattlesnake trained hundreds of dogs at our training ranch in Santa Clarita — and every dog goes home snake-trained, even if we need to do free follow-ups. Scott trained under one of the top rattlesnake avoidance trainers in the country and built an even more thorough course, with higher safety standards permanently built into a major 20-acre training facility in Santa Clarita. He's also a professional rattlesnake wrangler for film and TV productions.
Read Scott's Full Story →
We Train on Actual Rattlesnake Scent
Real scent from a live, securely caged rattlesnake and heavily scented cotton pads — not a urine- or feces-soaked substitute.
This Is What We Do
We lead every station and handle your dog ourselves throughout the course — you're not the one managing the risk.
Not Every Dog Is Perfect
Dogs avoid differently, and some need a second session — included, at no extra cost. We don't expect perfection from your dog.
We Don't Overwork the Stations
Every station is proofed, not drilled into the ground — over-repeating a correction stops teaching and starts traumatizing.
One Solid Correction Per Station
We aim for one clean, effective correction per station, leaving the final stations for your dog to avoid entirely on its own.
We Always Give Your Dog a Way Out
Training teaches avoidance, not a trapped, no-escape reaction — your dog always has somewhere to go.
We Don't Entice or Point Out Stations
Unless it's absolutely necessary, we let your dog find and react to each station on its own — not lead it there.
We Train on Actual Rattlesnake Scent
Real scent from a live, securely caged rattlesnake and heavily scented cotton pads — not a urine- or feces-soaked substitute.
Correction, Paired With Praise
Every time your dog runs from a rattlesnake, we pair that correction with genuine, immediate positive reinforcement.
This Is What We Do
We lead every station and handle your dog ourselves throughout the course — you're not the one managing the risk.
A Purpose-Built Program
We always take your suggestions, but we don't let owners take over the training on the fly. You'll be right there with us — but we're training your dog, not the other way around.
Health Comes First
We don't use e-collars on dogs with heart or seizure conditions.
Rabies Vaccination Required
We don't train dogs that don't have a current rabies vaccination.
Not Every Dog Is Perfect
Dogs avoid differently, and some need a second session — included, at no extra cost. We don't expect perfection from your dog.
Every Dog Is Trainable
If your dog will walk with a handler, we can train it.
Each dog finishes the day with a graduation diploma, a happy family, and a behavior pattern that lasts.
Every rattlesnake in our course stays securely caged — never muzzled, and never within reach of your dog. Every other full 12-station program we've found instead uses live rattlesnakes with their mouths taped or banded shut, and muzzles slip and fail — handlers get bitten, and the snake behaves unnaturally, so your dog learns the wrong picture. We do it differently, and it shows: more effective, much safer, more humane, less traumatizing, at a better price point, and run by friendlier people.
Our Safety Approach →Our 12-station course spends significantly more time with your dog, proofing each sense individually — that level of conditioning takes longer, and it's something you won't get from a $100 course.
Effectively, we're way more than half the price of other 12-station programs with our current 26% seasonal discount, auto-applied at checkout — and your refresher is included, all season long, at no extra cost.
Local veterinarians refer their own clients and professional trainers bring us their own animals — because preventing a rattlesnake bite (a $2,500–$5,000+ emergency) is exactly what they'd want for any dog they care about.
As someone with training experience, I was thoroughly impressed by their methodology. The setup is out in a dirt field — exactly the real-world environment where you'd actually encounter a snake. It was the ultimate test for my three crazy Jack Russells, who go after absolutely anything.
This course is clearly better than any other rattlesnake avoidance training course we've had — safer and more well thought out than what other trainers do, and the effectiveness is superior. Any way a dog encounters a rattlesnake, the Snake School gives it the best possible chance to avoid it and not be bitten.
Scott was incredibly friendly, professional, and knowledgeable. He used live rattlesnakes in a safe, controlled environment, along with scent and sound, to teach dogs to recognize and avoid the danger. It gave me confidence that my dog, Kalani, was getting realistic, effective training. I highly recommend it to anyone with a dog who hikes, camps, and lives in California.
Happy Pets Veterinary Center featured The Snake School to their clients — and brought their own team's dogs through the course.
A peek at our trainer, our handlers, our dogs, and the ranches where we work.
We are available to talk 7 days a week, and would love to chat with you. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions.
Booking, scheduling, private home sessions, or anything else. We typically respond within one business day. For faster help, just text us.
Thanks for reaching out. We'll get back to you within one business day.
