Are any of your other animals afraid of your BP?

[Sonya610]

Just curious to know if any of your other animals are afraid of your BP’s.

One of my elderly cats definitely is. She loves to sleep on the desk next to the BP’s tank, and she did that for days after I got him, until one day she SAW him. She stared in horror for a few minutes and then wanted nothing to do with that corner of the room for a while (she was not locked in the room, she could have left if she was overly distraunt).

She has since calmed down, and will sleep on the desk again but she still looks over her shoulder to make sure the serpentine beast (ch 08) is not about to break free and try something. I have read that some big cats in the wild have an instinctual fear of snakes.

None of my other animals care one way or the other, but of course they have never seen him on the ground showing off his snakey form in all its glory (and they won’t). Have any of you found that your other animals have a fear of them?

[rabernet]

Mine are pretty indifferent to them. Diamond will do a quick sniff if I'm holding one of them (she's my dog) and Sammy and Lexi (the kitties) were fascinated at first, but now could care less about them - they like the rats better - but are now pretty indifferent to them too - but Lexi does like to push her nose up to the bottom tub and "visit" with the rats in that tub from time to time.

[ZinniaZ]

My older dog Helga is afraid. She took one look and shied away. (Nice big wolfy looking husky mix girl thinking the 300 gram bp might eat her. ) But my basenjis are not afraid. They are eager. This is why locked cages are crucial in my house...

[JenH]

Dory, the corgi, is my ratter. She will kill any rodent she can get her mouth on. She is very wary of the snakes. The first ball we got bite her on the nose when she was being a little too nosy. LOL. Even since then, she will not get real close and if they crawl toward her she will leave the area...... :-)

[starmom]

My Rottie, Jack, just prefers to watch the process every feeding night and follow me back and forth as I feed each snake. He believes himself to be the overseer of operations!!!

[RobbinRN]

I have two pomeranians. Lacy is mostly indifferent, but when I put Alice down to crawl around, I have to watch to be sure she doesn't paw him. Dixie, on the other hand, gets so excited whenever I get him out of his tank. She has to lick him a couple of times and then she runs around the house in what my hubby and I have always referred to as the "puppy crazies!" She's very protective of Alice as well. I think she believes he's HER snake! Of course, everyone thinks I'm insane for even allowing a ball python to live in the same house as a 4-1/2 pound dog

Robbin

[mischevious21]

Not the dogs- but the bearded dragon is!! We've never even had them close, but whenever I bring the snakes upstairs and Reggie sees them from his cafe, he freaks out!! Then again, I guess I would too if I was him

[TanyaL]

Sandy, our beagle mix is the only one that will even look at Foster the bp. She has been known to sit on the bed so she is eye level with Foster's tank and just watch and from time to time bark at her. But, when Foster comes out, Sandy goes into chicken mode.

Goldie, our Golden could care less...as long as Foster isn't a threat to her food dish. And Shelby, our little yorkie mix looking thing...she just assume stay out of the way. We suspect (the ER vet, really) that when she was younger she got tagged by a rattle snake.

I'm too afraid to put Foster down while the dogs are down. I'm afraid of the dogs hurting Foster or Foster hurting them.

Just a few weeks ago, Sandy did find a snake in the yard. She kept her distance but barked like mad at it. I didn't see it but it sounded like it was just a little garter snake. I just hope she doesn't get brave enough when the rattle snakes appear again.

[Mindibun]

None of my animals are afraid of my snakes. My parrot thinks the milk snake is his toy. He gets excited when I take it out, and will stretch out as close as possible and go, "0o0o0o0ohhh..." He says that when he gets excited about something.


On the other hand, my ball python is afraid of my pet rats. Not even joking. She's a mouser - refuses to feed on rats. And one night I had her around my shoulders while sitting at my computer typing. One of the rats (who was across the room on a table and supposedly unable to get down) fell, and came scampering over to me. The snake started hissing like mad and when I took her off my shoulders she curled up into a little tiny ball. She did not go into strike mode. I thought it was the funniest thing.

[RobbinRN]

Lacy also lets me know when Alice is roaming in his tank at night (4:00 a.m.) by growling really low in her throat. The first time she did it I wasn't sure what she was growling at until I got up at 5:00 to get ready for work and checked on Alice. His tank was in disarray as it tends to get when he goes hunting. Now that I know what she's growling at, I just roll over and shush her and we all go back to sleep!