I was going to put this in the Boa forum but I tihnk it can apply to all so I am putting it here.
About 6 weeks ago I had an incident with my almost 6 year old female boa. I got here out to clean her cage. She was super flighty about it. I managed to get her out and in to a temp tub so I could clean. After cleaning I went to put her back in a she hissed and struck at me. She hasn't stuck at me since she was 6 months old and only did that once. I had to use the hook to get her back in her cage. She struck at me 2 more times.
I know some folks are like "No big deal!" But for me it was.
I was so freaked out about it. And it put a fear in me. I tried to rationalize it. Maybe she was in shed? She's an albino and it can be hard to tell. Maybe I hadn't been handling her enough lately.
I gave her and me a couple days. She showed no further signs of aggression to me since. But I couldn't get over that feeling. That fear it had put in me. It's one thing to get nipped by a ball. It would be something else for an adult boa to grab you. In an effort to get over it I started sitting at her cage almost daily. I'd slide the door and put my hand on her. But every time I saw her head turn at me all I could think was she was going to strike at me. Even though I knew better.
So I started watching handling videos. Bite videos to see when things go wrong. All in an effort to understand the signs, get my confidence back and reduce that fear. Slowly I left my hand on her longer. A couple times she would start to come out of the cage, sniff me out, and look around before going back in. That did a lot on it's own.
Yesterday. Yesterday, I opened her cage and she came out. Half way out and let me grab her. NO aggression. And no fear from me. She let me take her completely out. And it was like before. Like nothing happened. I felt so happy! We hung out for about 15 mins before it seemed she wanted to go home so I let her.
I just thought I'd share that in case anyone else has something similar happen to them.
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