I went for a hike around our place this weekend, including a bt of careful tiptoeing around the big rocky area I want to eventually turn into my range backstop.

While there - it's a realy rocky, snaky looking place - my dog roamed all over the area around me, blissfully ignorant of what snakes are. I don't know for sure that he's ever encountered one.

Well, in light of that, someone here recently mentioned somewhere in some thread in GD that certain breeds of dogs are good at finding and killing snakes without being killed themselves.

I have no real issue with non-poisonous snakes. I have no real issue with poisonous snakes that leave me alone. And I have better sense than to let our kids play in the rocks during the summer - but it occured to me, it might be nice if our next dog was a snake-killer, so as to keep the area around the house relatively free of snakes.

So what breeds are known for this?

Don't know that my labs have ever killed one but... if there is a snake within a quarter mile they will let me and everybody else know. None of them have been bitten yet and we have an equal number of rattlers, copperheads and water moccasins.

Maybe a Black Mouth Cur or other Cur Hound? They seem good at locating other animals like hogs. Maybe they would work with snakes too.

Mongoose

Possum.

Pigs.

I have a great dane and a shelty.  Both are quite the snake killers.  I don't know how they learned it but they will kill the shit out of any snake they see.  I think it is an instinct.

My Boston terrier Maggie kills the ever loving shit out them.

Had a German shepherd that liked to bring in dead snakes all the time. Usually just garter or rat snakes. Never anything poisonous that I remember.

i had to use pit bulls to subdue this guy , they both died though in the fight.

The correct answer to this thread is Honey Badger

-wiki

A hog is your best bet. They will find and eat all the snakes in short order.

Many years ago I used to frequent Hancock NY and the surrounding countryside  was infested with timber rattlers and copperheads.

The locals wouldn't go anywhere without their beagles which they used as snake detectors.

this. pigs will eat the shit out of snakes or anything else for that matter.

we had a yellow lab growing up that hated snakes...
I "think" they lower their chances of getting bitten by shaking the hell out of the snakes.

have also had dogs that never even noticed them would walk all over them and step on them without seeing them

What kind of snakes do you have? I don't know if folks know there is a rattlesnake vaccine these days for dogs. Rattlers have a hemotoxin which attacks the



red blood cells. Don't know what moccasins and copperheads have.

That's good to know. We will definitely look into such a vaccine. Where this place is, we should have rattlesnakes and copperheads. Maybe the possibility of a cottonmouth, but it would be unlikely as it's a fairly dry area.