Building a Relationship

The most important thing you can do with any pet, no matter what kind, is to build a relationship. Most people seem to have this general opinion that snakes are an animal that you can not build a relationship with. It's almost as though most people believe snakes are like fish; mindless, thoughtless, lumps of flesh you feed and put on display. How wrong those people are!

Like people, cats, and dogs, every individual snake has its own unique personality. They have likes, dislikes, fears, and favorite foods. They recognize their handlers and learn to either like or dislike them. They have body language that a person can learn to read if they are willing to be open minded enough to listen. Despite what the common belief is, a person can build a relationship with a snake.

For Shiva and me, I took a route highly discouraged by most experienced herpetologists. Shiva came everywhere with me when the weather allowed for it, or if I had appropriate heat pads with me. She would coil up in my hair like a scrunchy and rest her head either on the top of my ear or right in the middle of my head. Sometimes she would coil around my neck like a necklace and observe from there. Other times she would slide herself into my purse and peek out at the surroundings. I even took her with me to my "The Fantastic in East Asia" class on movie day.

Shiva came with me when I visited my parents for Christmas that year. I blasted the heat in the car and she perched on the rear-view mirror and looked out the window at the world as it flew by. The whole time she was calm and relaxed. I set up a small Sterilitte container at my parent's house with under tank heating (UTH) for the weekend. Most snake people told me that things such as this would stress out my snake, yet Shiva even ate while we were visiting my family, while my whole family watched even (stressed snakes are known to refuse food).

Needless to say, I admit that while my actions to take Shiva everywhere with me may have been foolish, may have caused her some potentially unnecessary stress, Shiva seemed the better for it. She was less jumpy, less scared, and she saw the world from the safety of my arms and therefore was not phased by going outdoors or seeing new people. It became obvious as the months passed that Shiva grew to trust me. Ultimately, I believe that the difference between a socialized animal and a sheltered animal is the same, no matter what species.

(Photo: Shiva visiting me at work [brought in by my ex], coiled around my Ipod and checking out the security cameras)

The Little Things...

Now, I found that as a new snake owner I couldn't help but become obsessed with the welfare of my snakeling. Not that it's a bad thing to be obsessed with the welfare of my baby, but I did what most new snake owners do - I checked the heat and humidity of my cage constantly. I found that a glass screen-topped cage was very very difficult to keep heat and humidity in (especially humidity) and so I misted down my baby's cage several times a day.

Unfortunately, misting alone was not enough. The lid let too much moisture escape. I followed someone's suggestion to place a damp towel on top of the cage and cover half the top with tin-foil to hold the moisture in, and it helped a little, but not much.

Regardless of my obsessive misting of Shiva's cage, her first shed with me was an absolute mess. She managed to get the head piece off but patches of her body still had shed stuck all over. I filled a bowl with warm water and placed her in it to soak and loosen the stuck on skin. I sat with her for an hour, watching TV while she soaked and I gently rubbed the shed off into the water. It took a while, but I eventually managed to get every piece off.

Naturally, after that horrible shed, I went to the forums and asked about what to do to make her next shed easier. "Make her a Humid Hide", they told me. So I ran off to the store, bought some Tupperware and some moss, brought it home, cut a hole in the Tupperware for Shiva to slither in and out of, placed the moss in the bottom, and filled the hide with water. Shiva loved it and after I first showed her the humid hide she spent several hours a day curled up inside of it.

The day before Thanksgiving day, 2006, I was playing with Shiva when I noticed one of her neck scales looked a little strange - shrunken and discolored. Upon further inspection I found that she had about 10 scales total that had a similar shrunken and dry appearance. My first reaction was to panic. My second, call the vet and make an appointment. The vet had no openings that day, and they were closed from Thanksgiving day through the weekend so the soonest I could get Shiva into the vet was Monday. I hoped it would be soon enough and consulted the internet. I found no helpful information on the internet, and nobody on the forum I posted on seemed to have any suggestions, so I turned to The Boa Constrictor Manual.

From reading the listings and descriptions of diseases, the only thing that seemed similar to what I was seeing was Bacterial Dermititis. According to the manual, I should treat the disease with Neosporin. I obsessively slathered Shiva with Neosporin several times a day, and by the time we were able to go to the vet she was already starting to go into shed again and the vet told me she should shed out the skin problem fine since I had caught it while it was in the first stages. Sure enough, Shiva not only had a great shed, but she shed out the dried up scales with no problems at all!

(Photos: Top Right- Shiva in her humid hide, bottom three- the dried patches of scales)

Learning Curve...

I'll be completely honest; the day I brought my beautiful baby snakeling to her new home I knew next to nothing about snakes and snake ownership. I had read a care-sheet I found on the internet and "The Boa Constrictor Manual" that I had picked up from PetSmart and that was the extent of the knowledge I had. Unfortunately, my limited knowledge led to a lot of mistakes in the care I provided. Luckily, I learned from those mistakes.

Now, the day I brought my baby to my boyfriend's place (my apartment wasn't suitable for keeping snakes in due to size and a roommate), I let Shiva climb on this Giraffe statue that stood next to the DVD case for a while before I had to leave for my Korean class.
"You don't have to put Shiva away yet. You can let her climb on the statue for a while." Said my boyfriend.
"Are you sure? Don't fall asleep before putting her back. I don't want her to get lost."
"Don't worry," He assured me "I'll keep an eye on her! She won't get lost."
Two hours later I returned to find him asleep and Shiva MIA. I panicked. I woke up my boyfriend and the two of us searched frantically for Shiva. We finally found her coiled up amongst the DVDs in the DVD case. Relieved, I put her back into her enclosure. Sadly, this would not be the last time snakes were lost due to stupidity.

One day, shortly thereafter, I went to check on Shiva and discovered these odd little white marsh-mellow looking blobs in her cage. I freaked. What in the world were those?! Was my baby sick?! It took many hours of internet research but eventually I found my answer on a forum for snake owners. The little white blobs were Urates (calcified pee) and quite normal and natural for snakes (and lizards and birds). I felt relieved, yet a little dumb. It was obvious to me that I had a lot to learn and a long way to go before I really knew what was going on. In order to help my learning, I joined the internet forum I had found my answer on, and began to post my questions and read as much as I could to learn as much as possible about snakes.

After Shiva's first week with me, I took her to the vet to have her probed to find out if she was really a she or a he. The vet was very kind, and Shiva reacted calmly to him handling her, inspecting her skin and eyes, and even the probing. We left the vet with a clean bill of health and verification that she was a she.

We returned home, and since it had been seven days since she last ate, I defrosted a pinky mouse for her to eat. I placed her in a box that was separate from her enclosure (as had been highly recommended by other snake owners) and offered the pink to her. She refused to eat it. Instantly I turned to the forums - sometimes snakes take a couple of weeks to break into their new home before they will eat. So I waited another week before offering her food again - refused. Distraught, I put her back into her enclosure and waited a couple more days. Finally, I noticed a new behavior! Instead of sitting on the warm side of her cage, Shiva had moved to sitting beside her water dish. This time, instead of taking her out of her cage, I offered her the pinky mouse while she was in "hunting mode" beside her water dish. She took it instantly! Baby Shiva was eating! Oh happy day!

These first couple of weeks I learned a lot about snakes and snake behavior. There was also a lot I should've learned but continued to make mistakes on.
- I should've learned that leaving my snakes out and under the watch of an irresponsible person was a bad idea... but I didn't.
-I did learn, however, that snakes urine hardens into white-yellow clumps called "urates".
-I also learned that some snakes need a break-in period and hungry snakes will move to the "watering hole" and wait for a snack to wander by.

(Photo: Shiva coiled around my neck about a week after she came to live with me)

In the Beginning...

When I was a child I was completely and totally obsessed with reptiles. Dinosaurs were my first interest and I could effectively spell "Tyrannosaurus" before I could correctly spell my middle name. I went from dinosaurs to iguanas, and then I saw it. There at the zoo, coiled up in a beautiful setup, was the most gorgeous animal I had ever seen! A Columbian Red-Tailed Boa Constrictor! It was definitely love at first sight. From that day on I periodically begged my parents to allow me to have a boa constrictor. Sadly, they always told me the same thing; "You can have a boa... when you grow up and move out!"

Years and years went by... no boas... no reptiles... nothing (I did manage to catch a grass snake once but my parents wouldn't let me keep it). Finally, in my 22nd year of life I was blessed with a beautiful baby boa who dramatically changed the course of my life forever. It started when I had just finished my shift at work and was leaving the office for the day. One of my co-workers stopped me with, "You'll never guess what we found in our apartment the other day!" "What?" "A baby red-tailed boa! We're going to take it to the Herpetological Society so it can be adopted out." "Can I have it?" "Sure."

It didn't take long before I had secured a place to keep my new pet (my not-at-the-time ex-boyfriend's house), an old aquarium (from my brother) with a screen top, a water bowl, a half-log hide, an UTH (under tank heater), a ceramic heat light, and a plethora of thermometers and hydrometers. A week from that fateful day I drove to my friend's apartment to pick up the boa.

I walked into my friend's apartment and there she was, perched on my friend's shoulder. It was love at first sight all over again. She slithered from my friend to me and went into my coat and coiled herself tightly around my arm. My friend gave me a small package with the remainder of the pinky mice the boa had been eating and I went to take my new baby, Shiva, to her new home.

That was the beginning of it all, and probably one of the most memorable times of my life.

(above photo: Shiva the day she was brought home)