Trish Swain | TrailSafe Nevada

Keep Your Dog on a Leash So They Won’t Get in My Traps!

by Trish Swain | Jun 22, 2019 | Featured

February 1, 2011Personal email: [Message from Randy Johnston who created the unique Hard Luck Mine Castle – a must-see phenomenon in the Nevada desert not far from Death Valley.]

First I must say its great to get some kind of response from persons that have the same problems with trappers and the same out look on the subject!

Getting up this morning and looking at your email was the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had! You must excuses my writing I’m poor at that so bear with at times.

In the last 12years I have had 3 dogs that have been in traps.the first dog was in a trap over 3 days and covered all the area looking for her with no luck and had to leave on a road trip on the last day. Just when I was leaving the trapper shows up with my dog with her front leg almost cut

off and then says keep you dog on a leash so they wont get in my traps!

That’s when I first found out they aloud ed trapping. Well went through Vegas to a vet and the leg had to be removed at the coast of $800.00 out of my expense not the trapper. This dog was only 7 mon.old so she spent the rest of 10years on three legs and could run like the other dog I had.

Then camping buy the Belmont area let my Basett dog out in the morning I was the only person camped and he go cout in a trap and I heard him and got him out in time before to much damage was done. The traps were all over the area close to the camp site!

I live on 40 acre of land on Gold Mt. I’m the only home on the Mt. And the trappers always set there traps all around my land so my dogs smell the sent they put out and then leave to check it out and yes get in a trap!

I’ve asked if they could move there traps a mile or so away so my dogs won’t get in the traps flat refused said they can put them any were they want !but at the same time they have hundred of open Mt. Area around this area.

This year lass month my new dog didn’t come home at dinner time so went out on the A.T.V in the dark looking and stopping and calling and could hear her some were out there! After two hours I found her in a trap with a very large weight on the trap that she had dragged more than one quarter

mile trying to get home! It took her over a wee before she could get around.

Then about a week ago my Bassett didn’t come in at dinner time and went though the same looking all over the area and never found him! The next day was going to town and ran accraoss the trappers down the road from my home and they had the Bassett in there truck he had been in there trap all

night and the damage is so bad to the joint in the leg that I think heal never be abel to run again. That when I got into the trappers to move there traps a mile down the road and they said NO!!! We can trap were ever we want!!! These persons are the most arigrent people and don’t give a

damn about animals and what they do to them! All they want is the $$ from the state or how ever pays for the skins!

What’s the worse thing is how the animal dies,first they get in the trap and spend 3to some times 5to7days in pain and then comes along the trapper and he doesn’t shot the animal he clubs it to death (to cheap to use a gun it mite coast $)

I’m very interested in helping were ever I can on stopping trapping!

— Randy Johnston

Two Dogs Trapped in Red Rock Area

by Trish Swain | Jun 22, 2019 | Incidents

[told in person] A few years ago, in the Red Rock area north of Reno, my dog was caught in a steel jaw trap while we were riding horses. On another occasion, a neighbor was missing his dog. Eventually the dog came home, dragging a trap on its leg.
Coyotes will follow us when we are riding, but we know we can scare them away. We don’t want traps out here.

Kaiser Trapped Near Lemmon Valley

by Trish Swain | Jun 22, 2019 | Persons Injured

I was running Kaiser January 2, 2011 (German short hair pointer) in an area that I have run dogs for the past 30 years. He chased a rabbit up and over a hill and that’s where he was snared. I was able to find him by his whimpers and by my other dog walking over to him. Kaiser was lying under a juniper tree and his coat matched the dirt–he was difficult to see. Luckily, the steel leg hold trap only grabbed skin on his shoulder–no meat, no tears. There was blood, but it turned out to be mine when the trap cut into my palm as I was opening it to free him.

The trap seemed to be fairly new but had not been visited (no tracks in the snow) for a few days. It was set off a dirt road where I have taken my dogs for the last 25-30 years in the back of Lemmon Valley on the way to Antelope Valley.

I have notified my neighbors and will forward all information to them. My suggestion was to put up signs warning people there were traps in the area. This is an area used by many for exercising dogs, 4-wheeling, etc. I was also very disappointed to discover that Nevada had the 96 hour rule instead of 24 hours as apparently other states have.

30 states received a failing grade (“D” or “F”) From Born Free USA
Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Hiker’s Dog Trapped – Hikers Discover Multiple Traps

by Trish Swain | Jun 22, 2019 | Incidents

A group of us were hiking near the old White Horse Ranch about 2003 by Olinghouse, west of Wadsworth. There were 10-12 of us. One woman’s dog, a sturdy German Shepherd cross, got her paw stuck in a trap. It took two of us to get the trap off. The dog was hysterical with pain and fear, but was still able to walk. We went on and further up the trail found eight or nine clamp traps. There were feathers hung near them, a signal the trapper was after bobcat. They were attached to rocks to hold them in place.

A hiker’s aluminum hiking pole got stuck in one and it was almost impossible to get it out. We also saw snare traps on this trail.

We saw more traps, clamped to the ground with rebar, on the west side of the slope.