Read the instructions, then watch the video. Take a leash on every hunting trip.
1. Twist the trap so that the jaws are not placing pressure on the animal’s windpipe.
2. Squeeze together one of the springs using both hands until you can fasten the safety lock over the arm of the spring. (Or, use the leash or rope).
3. Repeat for the other side.
4. Slide your dog’s head out from between the jaws of the trap.
[…] in a conibear trap. A length of rope also works, just tie a loop for your foot at the bottom. (Click Here to watch a video on how to release your dog from a conibear […]
Meadow has some good points. Traps are indiscriminant and can not only trap pets, but children, and any wildlife passing by or lured to it by bait. And in the water, they drown animals which also seems extremely cruel. I actually approve of legal, ethical hunting but not trapping.
Thanks a million, Scott.
Keep your dog on a leash and you won’t have a Problem !!!! Just guess what would happen if wild animals were left to breed without any control.First,there’s a very good chance that your unleashed pet would be quickly gobbled up by a fox or coyote,secondly, disease’s like rabies,distemper, etc would be ramped and guess who would be the first to complain about that !!!!
To Scott : ” Time for your check-up “
LOL! Good one, David W…”just guess what would happen if wild animals were left to breed without any control”. Gosh, let’s see…predators would eat them or they would live out their lives…the way God intended it. Nature keeps all in balance, men throw it out of balance. Men kill the healthy big animals weakening herds and weaken ecosystems. Men kill animals that large predators need to survive. MEN are the problem, not the animals. Trapping is incredibly cruel and should be against the law. There is absolutely no reason to do this to animals who have done nothing to deserve such a horrific end to their lives, all for the sake of lining pockets. Our woods are nearly empty because of all the killing. I like to photograph wildlife and make a buck on that…but trappers think they have more rights than I do.
You are idealistic, not realistic. We are long past any “natural” predator control on any species almost everywhere. It’s a good idea, in theory, but that’s for a Disney movie with rainbows and unicorns. Just as one of a hundred million examples – I live in a city with greenways of many hundreds of miles, where wildlife can move freely from rural areas through heavily populated urban spaces. Five dogs have been killed by coyotes in my prime dog walking areas – 3 on leash, one in his fenced back yard. Sorry, you don’t get to make the rules for Mother Nature, you have only to learn to live with them. And without hunters and trappers and management practices funded and developed by wildlife professionals and hunters, we would be over-run with unhealthy populations of destructive animals, and diseases threatening domestic animals. These animals will die horrible deaths, and if any so-called predators grew their populations to live off these critters, there would be no room for you and your family to live safely, and food would be so expensive you couldn’t afford to eat. Even what’s left of our nation’s wildlife natural areas needs a certain amount of human intervention.
Search and rescue dogs must be off leash to locate missing victims. Most of these dogs have hundreds/thousands of training hours to be proficient and a lost/injured dog is a huge set back. A basic understanding of dog rescue is essential for SAR groups. Thanks for the video.
Scott, this is an excellent video, and good information for anyone who traps or frequents areas with traps to know. I came across your site while researching some information on catching a mink that has been destroying our chicken flock.
Fence? We’ve had great luck w/fences to protect chickens.
I have released 2 dogs from Conibear traps. One was the neighbors dog and in my chicken coop where the coons had been killing chickens every night. I guess he came there to clean up the left-overs but he never came back after that night and he never barked at me when I stopped by their house after that.
The second was a trap left set way after season was over, never did figure out who was trapping there cause there was no tag on the trap.
Anyway the neighbors border collie got it’s nose in the trap. It took me about 15 minutes to get her out because the one spring was straddle of the dogs bottom jaw.
People understand that a dog almost never lives from being caught in one of these. A 220 conibear generally requires a tool that looks like a long pair of pliers to compress those springs. A 220 conibear kills extremely quickly! The video is very decieving in compressing those springs. I trap, I use those traps and I am an execptionall strong, large man and it takes EVERYTHING I have to compress those springs by hand. Those have to be dummy springs for educationally purposes in the video. Your best bet is to do what the woman does with a rope or leash using her foot. Trappers have every right in the world to do what they do and despite what the fanatical animal rights groups(who usually don’t care about animals, they are simply using a non profit to make huge salaries) would lead you to believe, 98% of the time they are very ethical people and respect the law to the letter. Trapping season where these traps would be used outside of water is generally just 10-12 weeks a winter. Know the laws, the seasons and be extra wary to keep your dogs restrained during the seasons as is required by law anyway.
I am just blown away that anyone thinks what they do is ‘right’ when it is so inconsiderate and harmful to other people. How about I come to your land and put up no trespassing signs to keep you out? Does that sound right?Trapping may be legal, but it is not right. I am an anti-trapping advocate volunteer. It costs me money to do this. That is how wrong trapping is.
Meadow, you are all over the place, I don’t understand what you mean. No tresspassing? But this is the MO of most of the so called animal rights/anti trapping groups, to spread lies and sensationalism. For anyone else reading who has been told or have read the articles that trappers are these barbarians who go out and place traps in parks and public right of ways placing foot traps that break the animal’s legs where they are left for days to suffer until the trapper comes back and chokes them to death because shooting them depreciates the fur value, these are blatant lies spread by these groups. For 99% of the trappers out there, professionalism and ethics are paramount. If you want to judge everyone on the other 1% then so called animal rights groups should be judged by the fanatics who burn people’s homes, attack scientist’s children and donate money to terrorist groups. Or the PETA shelter that kill 95% of the animals it receives, 30% higher than the ASPCA. However truth doesn’t garner donations, sensationalism does. Meadow, again I don’t know what you mean by no trespassing but the forest land is there for EVERYONE to use and enjoy. If you can’t respect that and if simply being aware of the fact that is a trapping season in part of the winter and simply keep your pet on a leash during that time which is actually required by law year round, it’s not the trapper that has a problem, it’s you. Statistically, in the last 10 years there have been over 700 times the number of pets killed by unrestrained dogs than animal traps. Again, for every 1 pet killed by a trapper’s trap, more than 700 pets are killed by unrestrained dogs. Furthermore, there are as many PEOPLE killed and seriously injured by unrestrained dogs as there are pets killed in traps. I can wholeheartedly respect that you don’t like trapping, I honestly can. I hate the thought of a pet killed by a trap probably more than you do. No one is asking you to embrace trapping, however you need to keep things grounded in reality and truth.
Sorry “Meadow”, but Daniel Green makes a -far- better argument than you. Not only does he present his information in a logical way, but he provides accurate statistics. You, on the other hand, have been content to throw out random spurts of opinion coupled with exclamatory statements that do nothing other than make you look like a fanatic. Your thoughts are not well-placed, nor are they well-worded. Throwing up the name of a random website as your shield against facts does you no good either. Even I am able to Google until I find a page showing images of almost any specific group doing something that is deemed “bad” by society. Just as there is goodness in all walks of life, there is also the opposite. Showing a few grisly pictures and stating that this is the “proof” that a hobby or situation is out of control is not only a bad argument, but it proves a lack of speculation or logic behind the defense. If this was a valid way to dispute a particular concept, I could just as easily point to a picture of two people fighting and say that there was a war on. You cannot take an especially small minority of incidents and tout them as the routine procedure. If you were truly interested in swaying people to your side, you would stick to facts and information that do not come with your opinion and/or feelings attached.
This trap will kill your dog and the trapper will in all likelihood get a pass. That is beyond wrong and unjust. These traps and their use should be illegal period.
Get a pass??? In the overwhelming majority of these cases the trapper isn’t doing anything illegal but the diog owner is by letting their aninmal run free. I’ve never seen a trap run up and bite a little kid but have seen plenty of dogs illegally running loose do it
It is not illegal to walk with your dog unleashed on most federal public land. Hunters and their bird dogs, ranchers and their herding dogs do it all the time. Livestock guard dogs are at risk too.
DTG, you are who is all over the place. Let’s keep the discussion to trapping. You put your traps on public land and you might as well say “keep out”. The forest is not enjoyable while your traps are there. I don’t want to find an animal in a trap, which I have and it was ugly! I don’t want my dog caught. I don’t want the expense of veterinary care in addition to anguish which you would impose on me! Your traps make it impossible for me to recreate with peace which is why I’m out there. Go to the BornFreeUSA webpage and look up “victims of vanity”. That was an undercover investigation that lasted only a few weeks. There you will see trappers crushing foxes to death, bludgeoning a raccoon, and strangling a bobcat- laughing as he does so. They caught cougar kittens by mistake- kittens of a species that is illegal to trap for god’s sake- and a squirrel with 2 broken legs. The word ‘barbaric’ is appropriate and correct. One of the trappers was a leader in the PA trappers association.
My experience of trapping belies your flowery words about it. I’m sorry.
[…] traps in Ontario. Even if you have no intention of removing traps, it’s not a bad idea to know how to open a Conibear, especially if you hike with dogs, or kids. The ban in Guelph was prompted by the death […]
The best solution is to ban traps for good.
A functional conibear trap requires a setting tool to compress the springs. If you can do it with hand strength alone the springs are shot and the trap shoud not be used. That said you have very little chance of using this technique to free your pet!
If you watch the video, you will see it is not “hand strength alone” that opens the trap. And I’ll bet that “hand strength alone” would double if MY dog was trapped in one! Or you could sit there and watch him choke to death. Your choice.
Here in Portland, OR, today a little cairn terrier was found barking and caught in one of these, and two neighbors got him out safely. Thank you for posting this.
[…] Opening a Conibear is far more complicated, involving two pieces of rope, speedy reaction and a good memory for how these simple-looking wire rectangles work, but unfortunately if your pet is caught in this type of trap its chance of survival is minimal (Adirondack Life). […]
Yes it is a good idea to have this video … does the twisting of the trap really release the windpipe? That would be the main focus then you can work on getting the trap off.
From what I’ve seen, yes.
[…] Opening a Conibear is far more complicated, involving two pieces of rope, speedy reaction and a good memory for how these simple-looking wire rectangles work, but unfortunately if your pet is caught in this type of trap its chance of survival is minimal (Adirondack Life). […]
[…] hike? There are diagrams and a video that tell how to release a leaf-spring or leg-hold trap. Opening a Conibear is far more complicated, involving two pieces of rope, speedy reaction and a good memory for how […]
Scott,
This is a perfect example of “a picture being worth a thousand words”. I’ll do my best to describe, but a video is really necessary. As I mentioned there is a long thin rod chained to a leg-hold trap that anchors it in the ground. When the trap is closed on the leg of an animal, it closes with a “scissors” action. The gap between the 2 trap sides is greatest at the top, and narrows to a “V” shape at the base.
What I did to release my dog was to place the rod parallel to his leg and insert it into the mouth of the trap. Then I worked it far down into the base of the “V” and turned it perpendicular. Once in place, with one hand steadying the trap and the other putting pressure on the rod, I was able to loosen the jaws enough for Max to free his paw.
This knowledge is paramount for those who hunt public lands, where hunters and trappers share land use. I wanted to be mad and blame someone for hurting my dog, but when I calmed down I realized that trapping is just another outdoor sport and it was up to me to be prepared for emergencies concerning my dog.
Scott,
Thanks for posting, my dog also has been caught in a leghold trap. Perhaps a video on how to release from this type of trap would be helpful to birdhunters as well. My cold hands couldnt budge the trap, a frantic search for a stick to work with wasnt doing the trick either. Seconds seemed like hours as my 6 month old pup (Max) was screaming in pain. Only my childhood familiarity with this type of trap saved him. I remembered that there has a long rod that anchored the trap in the ground. I pulled the chain and popped the rod from the ground. Using that metal rod was the only thing thin & strong enough to release Max’s paw. After all the blood cleared, I had feared the worst. To my relief, the blood on my hands was all mine. Max’s puppy teeth had done a number on them as he tried to free himself. No broken bones, and only 3 days of limping….we were very lucky. Jeff Kleman
Wow. Glad all ended well but can only imagine the fear and frustration. I’ll see what I can find and post it if I find anything. Thanks for the story and warning to us all. Just tell us what you do with the rod so we’ll at least have a fighting chance.
Good info. If your leash clasp won’t fit through the trap, just cut it off.
Thanks for the video, Scott! I have sent a web link for this video to my NAVHDA chapter members as many have never seen a conibear trap and they would not know how to release their dog from it.
Glad to help.
AGREED! THANKS Now the DWR gets to work there magic on him. That’s almost as good as the trap on neck! LOL
Scott ,This is very ironic less than a month ago while my wife and I were out walking our three labs the dogs got drawn to a tree all of a sudden my best bird dog Buddy [black lab ] gets nailed in a foot trap.I don’t even remember running to him just being there trying to get him to hold still long enough to get this trap off his foot . That’s not easy trust me here! Lucky for me I had worked with grand dads traps in the long ago past to do this fast without to much harm to Buddy’s foot . Lucky for the poacher /trapper because myself and the DWR were waiting for him to return the next morning .Good thing the DWR was there I was going to apply the trap to the poacher [hurt my dog will ya].Buddy’s fine, no broken bones but yes it does happen and it sucks . THANKS FOR SHARING THIS IS A GREAT TIP FOR ALL DOG OWNERS. MIKE C
Glad everything worked out near-perfect. Perfect would have been your application of trap to neck of poacher.
Thanks for the video and the information… I hope we NEVER have to use this knowledge