Bentley is Angie's Cockapoo — she calls him her "Cockadoodle" — and before he ever set foot on our ranch, he'd already survived the exact thing this training exists to prevent: a rattlesnake bite.
It happened out of Angie's sight, the way these things usually do. Rattlesnake venom doesn't always announce itself right away, and by the time Bentley started showing symptoms, he was in dire condition. Angie rushed him to the nearest animal hospital, where he received the only real, life-saving treatment for a rattlesnake bite: anti-venom. He wasn't released that day. He stayed under care while his body fought through it — and slowly, he came back. His spark returned, and Bentley was himself again.
That experience is exactly why Angie found us. Sadly, it's a familiar story — many of the families who come through Snake School only learn we exist after their dog has already been bitten. Angie did the right thing: rather than hope it wouldn't happen twice, she decided rattlesnake avoidance training was non-negotiable. Bentley was never going to suffer through that again if she could help it.
There was a nice surprise along the way, too. During training, Angie ended up facing something of her own — a lifelong discomfort around snakes, even the harmless kind. By the end of the day, she'd worked up the nerve to hold one of our gopher snakes, a completely non-venomous species we use to help owners (and dogs) tell the difference between "dangerous" and merely "snake-shaped." Bentley wasn't the only one who graduated a little braver.
Bentley is such a good boy — and Angie is a great dog mom. Shoutout to both of them.