Substrate, Stress, Onboarding (This one is a bit complex sorry) HELP

[Bogertophis]

By the way, you described how he struggled pretty hard to fight what you were doing-"I felt terrible trying to restrain him and he was really giving it everything he had to get out of my hands." -that pretty much tells me that you were holding him too tightly, too forcefully, & also put him at risk of injury to himself by hurrying the process. You have to find the right balance for gently holding & guiding a snake so they cooperate- too much force & they respond just as we would if put in a choke-hold: with fear, panic & fighting your every move. But when you do it right, relaxed & with empathy, you'll get it done without either of you suffering too much. Be more patient with snakes- they don't understand what you're trying to do- try to imagine how it would feel to be in their place.

[beefontheboard]

By the way, you described how he struggled pretty hard to fight what you were doing-"I felt terrible trying to restrain him and he was really giving it everything he had to get out of my hands." -that pretty much tells me that you were holding him too tightly, too forcefully, & also put him at risk of injury to himself by hurrying the process. You have to find the right balance for gently holding & guiding a snake so they cooperate- too much force & they respond just as we would if put in a choke-hold: with fear, panic & fighting your every move. But when you do it right, relaxed & with empathy, you'll get it done without either of you suffering too much. Be more patient with snakes- they don't understand what you're trying to do- try to imagine how it would feel to be in their place.

I was definitely trying to be gentle but also wanted to get the 'handling' done as quickly as possible as I knew that it would stress him out and I wasn't technically supposed to be handling him. I forsure should've tried to take more time to do things slowly, but also wasn't using the burm hunter throat grip by any means. I'll definitely be more cognizant of the gentle, slow handling needed.