People never cease to amaze me. Why in the world would someone spend hundreds of dollars on an animal, more hundreds on a cage for it, and then not provide it with even the most basic requirements such as heat and water, and on top of that endanger the animal further by leaving live rats in its cage?

I just can’t figure this out. Seriously. This RTB I adopted is beautiful, I know the guy paid a lot of money for him, and as much if not more for the aquarium (with oak stand) he had him in… and yet, no heat provided at all not even an UTH much less a t-stat. No hides (though I know not strictly necessary for a boa, I still would offer them), water dish bone dry. Florescent light over the tank on 24/7. He came with a healing rat bite on his chin and I noticed an older scar on his back I’m sure is from another rat bite.

Then today a co-worker noticed the pic of my BP on my desk to and started a conversation. Come to find out his son had a python (though he couldn’t tell me what *kind* of python). As if that in it’s self wasn’t alarming enough he went on to ask if I fed my snakes live or frozen. I told him I fed P/K because I would be too worried about making sure a frozen rat was completely thawed (even though I know plenty of people that feed F/T without problems). He gives me this sort of blank look and says (I kid you not) “You have to thaw them? Why?” :eek:

I really don’t know how some of these animals survive the stupidity of their owners. Then, after I explained some possible problems he could run into feeding frozen rats to his snake, he says to me “I’ve been thinking about getting rid of the snake anyway. Kid doesn’t take care of him all that much.”

%@*#!! What the hell is wrong with people. You go buy a living creature that can live many years and then you get bored taking care of it after a while and kick it to the curb, or worse. I know this is a problem for pets of all kinds, it just ticks me off. I just know he’s going to go home this weekend and tell his kid he’s found a good home for the snake and he’ll come in Monday and ask if I want it. Watch it be a Burmese or something *sigh*. </ rant>