My love, my snakes

Snakes really are becoming my life. I love everything about them. They amaze me. They are the best pets ever. To be honest, now that I have snakes, it's really hard to own anything else. Even though I love my dog, he's a pain in the butt compared to the snakes. They don't shed hair everywhere, they don't chew up my stuff, they don't really do anything out of spite or maliciousness, they are quiet and are really easy keepers. On top of that, they provide me with all the affection and love a cat would, without the mess or the smell.

Snakes are so much more intelligent than people give them credit for too. They think, feel, have likes and dislikes. I've even seen a snake hold a grudge before and they pick and choose who they like and don't like. They have a great judge of character. Despite what people say, snakes do socially interact with each other. I've witnessed it with my own two eyes.

To be honest, I wish people gave these animals more of a chance. They are unfairly judged. People call them "slimy" and "gross"... snakes, in general, are probably cleaner than your mouth and are far from slimy (except maybe anacondas). They are endearing, affectionate, intelligent creatures, each with their own personalities. They are just severely misunderstood. People who, upon hearing I have snakes, scrunch their faces and declare how "disgusting" it is piss me off. Most of those people have never even been in the same room as a snake.

What people don't seem to understand is that humans are not born with a fear of snakes. They are socialized to have a fear of snakes. People who live in an area where there are more venomous snakes in the wild are raised to have more of a fear of them than people who live in places with more non-venomous snakes. However, what I've noticed is that there are people out there who believe that ALL snakes are venomous. I've even been asked if my boa CONSTRICTORS have been "de-fanged"... or if I'm afraid I'm going to be bitten. If I was afraid my snakes were going to kill me, I wouldn't be walking around with them around my neck! Seriously people, use some logic! There are just a lot of severely misinformed people out there. It makes me sad. These animals don't deserve the bad-rap they've been given.

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)