Longtime (second generation) dachshund breeder Charlotte Borghardt of Sierra Vista, Arizona, posted this message on a dachshund forum today. It is copied here with Charlotte's permission.
Last night at our Kennel Club Board meeting, we were discussing Rattlesnake Proofing. One of the Board members related this recent story to me about a dachshund going through this training...
There is a well respected hunting dog trainer up in Phoenix who also does the rattlesnake training.... ( While I understand the need for this, I could not in good conscience do this to my dogs)... Anyway, this trainer was doing a clinic and had a defanged rattler ... each dog went through the training and obviously the shock collar worked like it was supposed to...
Then someone brought a dachshund to be trained...usually, when the dog approaches the snake and gets the shock, the dog takes off and wants to avoid the snake at all costs....
Well, the dachshund got shocked and I'm told he was so pissed at the snake that he killed it before anyone had a chance to react....I guess he was not scared off the snake but rather figured the way to not get shocked again was to kill the thing.
Dachshunds!
Charlotte Borghardt
Teckelhof Dachshunds
ps Charlotte and her mother Edith Colaneri were the breeders of DC Teckelhof's Perfidious who was father of my Karl. They bred standard longhairs for many years before switching to miniature longs. I will add to Charlotte's comments that my conscience would be quite okay with conditioning my dogs off snakes like this if I lived in an area where I found it necessary to do so!