Quote Originally Posted by Neal View Post
Were you there to know the fact? No, so don't presume to act like you do. I said it's a bad judgement call. I never said it couldn't be done. I never said dogs or cats were unpredictable either. I own a wolf, so I know of the risks but you don't see me over here advertising it either.

You said I didn't read a few posts up where it never struck. I wasn't even referring to anything you said, I never said it struck either, I said it could of and missed. You just don't know. I did not make an inaccurate generalization, I said it's a bad judgement call to sit here and advertise it. You could have your animal for 25 years, and it never bite you, and you deal with it several times a week. That doesn't mean you know your animal. Snakes can't learn, sure they can associate smells with experiences. If you honestly think you know your snake and know it won't do something, then you're either blind or found something that's legal to smoke, and have had way too much of it. Snakes are awesome pets, and I think it sucks that people look down on them due to fears and such. But snakes a primitive species with little reasoning skills. They can't be trained to sit or fetch, roll over or play dead. Snakes react mainly from instincts.

We can continue this all day long if you'd like but in the end I'm going to make you look bad. So that's your call.
Again, read what he said. The snake did not strike. He said that, not me. If you missed the distinction between striking and picking something up, your reading comprehension is as bad as your grammar.

I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of animal intelligence, but showing your own lack of understanding on the subject is probably not the best way to "make me look bad." The ability to fetch, roll over, or play dead isn't evidence of intelligence. It's a response to conditioning. You're drastically oversimplifying something that you don't understand to begin with. The simple fact is that you can't train a python in the same way you would a cat or a dog. Attempting to do so is a reflection on the trainer's lack of reasoning skills not the animal. You CAN, however develop an understanding of an animal's natural behaviors, and consequently use that understanding and those behaviors to work with an animal. The fact that you obviously have no experience or education in that regard doesn't make it any less true. While reptiles are primitive and have less ability to reason than some animals, you're absolutely wrong in that they can't learn. In fact, you directly contradict yourself by saying they can associate scents with experience. That IS learning AND reasoning. It also shows some capability for abstract thought.

Aside from all of that, I would wager that nearly every keeper on this site has had a personal experience with just how quickly a snake can learn. One escape. That's all it takes. Even you can't argue with the fact that it's extremely well documented that a ball python will escape once, and attempt to escape the exact same way repeatedly.

It doesn't require smoking anything to learn about animal behavior. It just requires that you not be narrow minded.

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