I will just say 1 thing.... You can really tell the character of a person by what they think of animals. This is almost 100% true when I applied this to my personal life. If he laughs about your passion of animals, and he laughs about the fact that you dont want to give them up, then hes basically worthless already in my book.
I know not everyone is as "into animals" as us on this forum, but people who don't care about animals at all or have no interest in them tend to be pretty worthless. All of the people I know who are very interested in reptiles or other animals are pretty much all more passionate, friendly and just polite and positive than the few people I know that dislike animals.
I know people will probably disagree with me and this will turn into an argument like always, but thats just something I have noticed.
If this guy dislikes animals and hes trying to make you give up your dreams, then just end it right now. He sounds like a tool.
EDIT - Oh yeah, I ain't a lady but I figured I'd throw in my 2 cents.