TRAPS -- A new educational video – Avoiding Wildlife Traps While Walking your Dog -- is available on Idaho Fish and Game’s website.    

The 9-minute video shows the variety of traps and snares dog owners may encounter while hiking or walking their pets and how to recognize them.

Some traps and trap sets can be visible if you know what to look for. However, many traps will be difficult to spot; it depends on the species targeted.

The video, below, will help dog owners make decisions about whether to keep their dogs on-leash in certain areas.

This video is available on the Idaho Fish and Game Department trapping webpage  along with a companion 8-minute video released earlier, Releasing Your Dog from a Trap that explains how a variety of traps work and how to release your dog from traps.

Although Fish and Game does not know exactly how many dogs are caught in traps each year and not reported, trapper harvest reports indicate an increasing number of incidental dog catches over the last several years.

In the 2012-2013 trapping season, 32 accidental dog captures were documented and 52 dog captures were reported during the 2013-2014 season. Several resulted in dog deaths.

Here's the first Idaho report in 2015 that's come to public attention:

Hunting dog survives being caught in snare

TWIN FALLS, ID (AP) – An eastern Idaho hunting dog survived getting caught in a snare trap meant for coyotes by remaining calm.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game spokesman Dan Kelsey said the 5-year-old Weimaraner’s leash training likely stopped her from pulling against the snare and choking herself to death.

Leslie Soderquist was running her dog on 35 acres of family land next to a canal.

She heard the dog’s yips and was able to free it.

Kelsey found four more snares, one about 75 yards from Soderquist’s house.

Kelsey said the trapper received permission from another landowner and won’t be cited.

Soderquist said she now carries cable cutters.