Quote Originally Posted by Vasiliki View Post
I had a problem like this with my boyfriend's co-worker. She was neglecting her animals as well, despite telling me how much she loves them. She would even go so far as to tell ME how to take care of MY animals. Such beautiful quotes that can be recalled are:

"You're feeding your crested gecko Repashy Crested Gecko Diet?! You should be feeding it baby food!! Wow you should really read up on things."

"You know your crested gecko doesn't have a heat lamp. It's probably going to die without it. Just saying."

"Your leopard gecko is cute, but really fat. Look at that tail! You are feeding it just waaaay too much. You need to stop that."


Ahhhh yes. Those were the days. Until I got a call at 3am with her crying because her bearded dragon was having a seizure. I calmly informed her that it was because she had never provided him with a UVB light, or anything but crickets for his entire life. Only when the animal was on the cusp of death did she ask me for help. And even then, I told her I would only help her if she did everything I said, and didn't give me flack about it. Otherwise, she could figure it out herself.

She did. She listened. We got the beardie stable, got his diet better, his seizures stopped, vet agreed with everything I had told her, etc etc.

Two months later, she was dropping the ball again, not listening, and picked up even more animals. My last resort was taking her to our local reptile society and having complete strangers critique her animals and set-ups. Only then did she listen. Why? An outside source gains NOTHING. An outside source can judge you all they want and it's not personal. An outside source doesn't care who you are, but cares what the animals look like.

She did switch after that. And then realized reptiles weren't for her and sold the rest of them.

So perhaps you could have her bring her snakes to someone 'outside' of the situation to get some unbiased feedback? Although, you said she worked with a big name breeder, so maybe that might not work.

Sometimes, telling someone to change doesn't help. And sometimes, we need to be super blunt.

Personally, I couldn't be friends with someone who treated their animals like that. If you don't care about your animals, then are you really going to be a good friend to me? Are you going to care about our friendship? Or is it just there until you get bored and stop putting effort into the friendship?
Wow Danielle thank you for sharing & the advice. Everything you said described exactly how she treats her animals, however she's never called me with a 911 emergency. & she also knows better to critique the way I treat my animals hehe. She knows in her heart that I am more capable of properly taking care of these snakes & I'm going to do everything in my power to not let them get back in the wrong hands.
She actually watches me at least once a week "making my rounds", checking cage temps & humidity, cleaning cages, changing out the water bowls, & even feeding. I mean... she actually sees this, so it just tells me that she likes the IDEA of owning snakes, she just flat out doesn't have the motivation or compassion to properly take care of them.
On top of all this she worked for a breeder & took care of snakes so it's not like she is misinformed. I honestly think she had more "important" expenses that were used for other things instead for food that's a mere $4 every 5 days. So sad.
I have a feeling the will eventually be in my permanent collection. Thank you for your input, it was extremely helpful!