Thanks guys, I am going to take my time getting a new dog, probably a few months and I'm going to research it very well. My wife and I agreed when our two very big dogs do go, we were going to get smaller dogs so another rottie is not an option. We still have the chow/lab and shes 15 years old.
I know terriers arnt designed to be snake killers although some places say they are excellent snake killers
http://www.orionkennel.com/nick.html and kill a lot of poisness snakes. I do not want to put that burden on a dog but I would like it to be able to find snakes, then I take care of killing it.
Terriers seem to be the breed to do it. They use them to sniff out brown snakes for the airlines, they use them in many differnt snake situations because frankly they seem to be very good at it if trained right. The one that looks most appealing the Jack Russel, they say isnt very good with kids though and I want a family oriented dog although my kids are very nice to dogs, my boy is only 18 months.
Manchesters I dont know much about, any imput? Right now I'm considering Rat, Cairn, silky and maybe a manchester but I want to research them all very good first. I will probably get the one most even tempered.
I just ordered a gallon of Rodent glue which I'm goign to put on a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood and buy a few mice and put them in a cage in the center of the plywood and leave it there overnight on the otherside of the fence to see how bad my problem is. Someone did that here in town and they found a lot of snakes the next day.
If theres a lot, You can bet I'll be contacting the city asking them to fill that ditch coming off the lake or something. King snakes are another option, I am going to look into the cost of them and hopefuly buying some and releasing them back there.