Fun Educational moment

So tonight I got the opportunity to introduce one of my snakes to my Ophidiophobic family and it ended up being a very positive experience. They learned that snakes are in fact NOT slimey at all and are actually really amazing animals. I even got my mother and brother to hold him.

The biggest win was with my nephew. He is three and turning four in July. His first ever experience with a snake went through three stages: interested but terrified whenever it moved to curious and willing to just barely touch it with the tip of his finger, and then wanting to pet and hold the backside of the snake. He had a nonstop flow of questions at that point.

Before he left he dropped the, not so subtle hint, that he really liked my snake and he has a birthday coming up this year. Lol

I always love hearing stories about people who changed someone's mind about reptiles, but it is so much better to experience it.

Wonderful job Tash, maybe he could get into the hobby when he's older. :P

Gotta love how kids don't know the meaning of subtlety lol. It's always great to see people progress from frightened to curious :)

awesome. we had the family over for thanksgiving and with 27 people in the house there was only 4 of us who have been around pythons before and only 2 of the 23 others were scared. one of the kid's has a history of secures and other conditions and seeing him join in with the other kids instead of his normal being off alone was so awesome.

I recently introduced mine to my 4 year old niece. It started with "where's his legs?" And ended with "I wish I could have a baby snake when I'm old enough." So looks like I have little helper in training now because whenever I go over the first think she asks is if I brought the shake with me.

One of my favorite "selling points" with snakes is the pest control angle... Especially with wild snakes--they keep tick populations down! Usually when people start seeing the help our beloved friends do in the ecosystem, they start to change their tune. I'm just happy if someone moves from the old "the only good snake is a dead snake" stance to, "Huh, maybe they're not so bad after all." Keep up the good work!