Hello! I am new here, but my lovely girlfriend introduced me to this site. I have browsed it a lot and loved how nice everyone seems to be!

But that is besides the point

I have a little Sinaloan Milk Snake whom I've named Monty. He's about 8-10 months old and he's a little over a foot. He's got a great personality and he's a hearty eater (just upped him to 2 pinkys every week!) his only set back is that he's so danged jumpy. He's really not happy whenever I got to handle him and he's terrified when I do. He tends to pee/poo on me whenever I hold him and usually tries to jump from my hands.

Now the bodily fluids I can handle, but it's the jumping that makes me nervous. He's still quite tiny and my house is really quite cluttered so it's not easy for him to even readily explore. I feel like whenever I take him out, I have a rubbery pencil trying to jump from my hands.

I talked to the guy who sold him to me and he said that Milks are initially skiddish but calm down after they get a little older. Does anyone know if that is more or less true? He's still little, so I'm hoping it's just a phase. Most adult Milks I've seen are really quite mellow and easy to handle, and I'm just hoping Monty will cool down too.

Does anyone have any pointers for getting him used to his handlings?