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Westside Waterfowl Club to hold annual snake avoidance clinic
By Steve Merlo, Bakersfield Californian Contributing columnist
May 07, 2003
With lots of rainfall already on the ground this year and more on the way, the desert, foothill and mountain areas should spring abundant for upland game during the fall hunting seasons.
Given Mother Nature's propensity for propagation, though, all native species populations should benefit, and that also includes reptiles like lizards and snakes, including the venomous and sometimes deadly rattlesnake.
Whenever yearly conditions are right, and this year is one of them because of its burgeoning cover, farm and hunting dogs seem to come in more contact with our local buzztails and get bitten more often. Simple training can prevent most of those snakebites, but most people simply don't know how to train their animals.
The Westside Waterfowl Club can educate people on teaching snake avoidance to their pets and furry hunting companions. The club will hold its popular Rattlesnake Avoidance Clinic for dogs on May 17 and 18. Conducted by professional herpetologist Robert Kettle, the clinic will teach your dog how to both avoid and announce the presence of rattlesnakes when afield.
The event will be held at the Greenfield Baseball Fields at the corner of East Panama (not Panama Lane) and Cottonwood Roads, approximately two miles east of Highway 99. Cost for the event is $50 per dog and each day's activities run continuously and at specific intervals from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Because space is limited, training sessions will be done by appointment only. Because the event usually sells out early, applicants are asked to register in advance by contacting Bill Caughlin or Olen Arnold at 634-9293.
Smart hunters, sportsmen and all other dog lovers are asked to give this very worthwhile clinic a go and teach your dog how not to get snakebitten this fall. It'll pay off, I guarantee.
Speaking of snakes
While growing up in the community of Buttonwillow, my brother and I were continually hunting and fishing in the deserts and canals that encircle the tiny town. Because we spent so much time in the outdoors meeting or playing with all manner of reptiles, amphibians and other critters, handling them became almost second nature, and one never knew what manner of bestial creature the two of us carried on our person.
Like the time I was five and not knowing any better, tried to pay for our entrance into the old Buttonwillow Theater with a live toad (Hey, I was proud of that hand-sized pet and parting with it wasn't exactly easy...).
While I figured the creature to be worth the price of many, many admissions, I was willing to give him up for a mere two just to see the flick. I simply didn't understand then that lots of folks didn't (and still don't) appreciate cold-skinned things that crawled or slithered, especially into ticket-selling booths.
Anyway, when I proudly thrust my precious ducat through the slot and said, "Two, please," all you-know-what broke loose with the gal accepting the "money." Busy gabbing with some other person and not paying a whole lot of attention, she took the creature right into her hand before noticing the "green," in this case, had warts, and not wrinkles.
Honestly, to this day, I have never seen someone move or jump so fast and so high!
Luckily, my Dad, the projectionist, was working and, when summoned for the "emergency," removed both the offending toad and his sons from the immediate area. Eventually, with some cajoling, he was also able to coax the distraught young lady back into the booth to continue working.
Every time I saw her after that, she seemed to have that same wretched mixture of shock and fear permanently etched on her face. I wouldn't say she hated me, but I'm reasonably sure she was never too thrilled to see me again.
And then there was the time I took a mouse to school in a shoebox for something akin to "show-and-tell." On our way home (we usually walked), we stopped into the family-owned department store to check in with my mom and grandmother. Shoebox in hand, we were discussing the day's events when my always-curious grandmother asked me what was in it.
I explained that it was a live mouse, and, of course, both she, my mother and Sara, the hired help, right away insisted I had to be lying. No offspring of their own and in their right mind would ever dare to bring such a despicable and utterly frightening creature as a mouse into their store. I assured them that Mickey wasn't anything like that and started to leave the building, but Nonna insisted that I open the box marked "Mickey the Mouse" and show her its contents, or else.
Naturally, I obeyed, but I really think she expected some form of disguised-in-a-mouse-box, banned childhood contraband instead of a despised, "eek-eek" field rodent. At her insistence, I opened the container and allowed the subject of her angst to run up my arm in plain sight.
Forty three years later, I still thank heaven that the entrance was located where it was and not 10 feet either way. If it had been somewhere else, then there would have been three additional doors in the wall, all in the shapes of human silhouettes with their arms over their heads.
Once again, I was amazed at the speed at which some people can move, and even more astounded at the punishment that can be handed out to a kid for obeying a simple maternal request.
And then there was the high school snake-on-the-bus incident. Same shoebox, too.
Roberta, one of my classmates, asked to see the contents of the box marked "Charles, the gopher snake, do not open" printed in pencil over a crossed out "Mickey the Mouse," the once-famous, but now lately departed department store evacuation instigator.
She really should have known better than to ask, especially with the way that news of some of the other Merlo-inspired-incidents spread in the tiny town (and, to my defense, how was I to know she was deathly afraid of any form of slithering reptile?).
Even after I removed the six-footer from the box, she still didn't believe it could be alive. Eyes wide open (you know the look it's the kind of a pre-terror precursor where the whites of one's eyes really shine), she cautiously moved her face closer to get a better view of what had to be an impossible joke.
The hiss of a giant, mildly riled gopher snake is unlike that of any other creature, and the one that escaped from poor Charlie was louder than any other I can remember.
I figured Roberta would pass out, but instead and to her credit, she reacted like a sprinter out of the blocks. With the scene originally taking place at the back of the bus, she screamed and then covered the 65 feet to the front in world record time, hurdling seats, books and other students about two-at-a-time in the blur it took for her to reach the driver.
Thank heavens again. Bill, the bus driver, finally managed to wrench the steering wheel from her hands and get the bus stopped before something really serious happened.
He then made me release ol' Charles before we got under way again, and for the rest of the next four years, both he and Roberta kept an eye on me whenever I got on the bus.
By Steve Merlo, Bakersfield Californian Contributing columnist
May 07, 2003
With lots of rainfall already on the ground this year and more on the way, the desert, foothill and mountain areas should spring abundant for upland game during the fall hunting seasons.
Given Mother Nature's propensity for propagation, though, all native species populations should benefit, and that also includes reptiles like lizards and snakes, including the venomous and sometimes deadly rattlesnake.
Whenever yearly conditions are right, and this year is one of them because of its burgeoning cover, farm and hunting dogs seem to come in more contact with our local buzztails and get bitten more often. Simple training can prevent most of those snakebites, but most people simply don't know how to train their animals.
The Westside Waterfowl Club can educate people on teaching snake avoidance to their pets and furry hunting companions. The club will hold its popular Rattlesnake Avoidance Clinic for dogs on May 17 and 18. Conducted by professional herpetologist Robert Kettle, the clinic will teach your dog how to both avoid and announce the presence of rattlesnakes when afield.
The event will be held at the Greenfield Baseball Fields at the corner of East Panama (not Panama Lane) and Cottonwood Roads, approximately two miles east of Highway 99. Cost for the event is $50 per dog and each day's activities run continuously and at specific intervals from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Because space is limited, training sessions will be done by appointment only. Because the event usually sells out early, applicants are asked to register in advance by contacting Bill Caughlin or Olen Arnold at 634-9293.
Smart hunters, sportsmen and all other dog lovers are asked to give this very worthwhile clinic a go and teach your dog how not to get snakebitten this fall. It'll pay off, I guarantee.
Speaking of snakes
While growing up in the community of Buttonwillow, my brother and I were continually hunting and fishing in the deserts and canals that encircle the tiny town. Because we spent so much time in the outdoors meeting or playing with all manner of reptiles, amphibians and other critters, handling them became almost second nature, and one never knew what manner of bestial creature the two of us carried on our person.
Like the time I was five and not knowing any better, tried to pay for our entrance into the old Buttonwillow Theater with a live toad (Hey, I was proud of that hand-sized pet and parting with it wasn't exactly easy...).
While I figured the creature to be worth the price of many, many admissions, I was willing to give him up for a mere two just to see the flick. I simply didn't understand then that lots of folks didn't (and still don't) appreciate cold-skinned things that crawled or slithered, especially into ticket-selling booths.
Anyway, when I proudly thrust my precious ducat through the slot and said, "Two, please," all you-know-what broke loose with the gal accepting the "money." Busy gabbing with some other person and not paying a whole lot of attention, she took the creature right into her hand before noticing the "green," in this case, had warts, and not wrinkles.
Honestly, to this day, I have never seen someone move or jump so fast and so high!
Luckily, my Dad, the projectionist, was working and, when summoned for the "emergency," removed both the offending toad and his sons from the immediate area. Eventually, with some cajoling, he was also able to coax the distraught young lady back into the booth to continue working.
Every time I saw her after that, she seemed to have that same wretched mixture of shock and fear permanently etched on her face. I wouldn't say she hated me, but I'm reasonably sure she was never too thrilled to see me again.
And then there was the time I took a mouse to school in a shoebox for something akin to "show-and-tell." On our way home (we usually walked), we stopped into the family-owned department store to check in with my mom and grandmother. Shoebox in hand, we were discussing the day's events when my always-curious grandmother asked me what was in it.
I explained that it was a live mouse, and, of course, both she, my mother and Sara, the hired help, right away insisted I had to be lying. No offspring of their own and in their right mind would ever dare to bring such a despicable and utterly frightening creature as a mouse into their store. I assured them that Mickey wasn't anything like that and started to leave the building, but Nonna insisted that I open the box marked "Mickey the Mouse" and show her its contents, or else.
Naturally, I obeyed, but I really think she expected some form of disguised-in-a-mouse-box, banned childhood contraband instead of a despised, "eek-eek" field rodent. At her insistence, I opened the container and allowed the subject of her angst to run up my arm in plain sight.
Forty three years later, I still thank heaven that the entrance was located where it was and not 10 feet either way. If it had been somewhere else, then there would have been three additional doors in the wall, all in the shapes of human silhouettes with their arms over their heads.
Once again, I was amazed at the speed at which some people can move, and even more astounded at the punishment that can be handed out to a kid for obeying a simple maternal request.
And then there was the high school snake-on-the-bus incident. Same shoebox, too.
Roberta, one of my classmates, asked to see the contents of the box marked "Charles, the gopher snake, do not open" printed in pencil over a crossed out "Mickey the Mouse," the once-famous, but now lately departed department store evacuation instigator.
She really should have known better than to ask, especially with the way that news of some of the other Merlo-inspired-incidents spread in the tiny town (and, to my defense, how was I to know she was deathly afraid of any form of slithering reptile?).
Even after I removed the six-footer from the box, she still didn't believe it could be alive. Eyes wide open (you know the look it's the kind of a pre-terror precursor where the whites of one's eyes really shine), she cautiously moved her face closer to get a better view of what had to be an impossible joke.
The hiss of a giant, mildly riled gopher snake is unlike that of any other creature, and the one that escaped from poor Charlie was louder than any other I can remember.
I figured Roberta would pass out, but instead and to her credit, she reacted like a sprinter out of the blocks. With the scene originally taking place at the back of the bus, she screamed and then covered the 65 feet to the front in world record time, hurdling seats, books and other students about two-at-a-time in the blur it took for her to reach the driver.
Thank heavens again. Bill, the bus driver, finally managed to wrench the steering wheel from her hands and get the bus stopped before something really serious happened.
He then made me release ol' Charles before we got under way again, and for the rest of the next four years, both he and Roberta kept an eye on me whenever I got on the bus.
