Stupid BP Owner

[KingWheatley]

Personal space?? Normally I would say this only exists in your house BUT you have a room mate so everything other than your room is communal space.
The dog does not understand this as it was/is in the communal area where allowed.

I know this. Regardless of this, I do try to teach him to not jump up on people. But when your roommate likes to play with him when he's being bad... It's his first dog ever. And both him and his daughter don't use firm voices at all with the dog. The dog listens to me more than anyone, though.

That dog's claws have cut me more times than I'd like. And he's a medium sized dog. He's very friendly with his teeth. I'm at an absolute loss on how to get this puppy to understand that it's not ok...

Smacking is not an appropriate type of discipline for a canine. Hitting is primate behavior that doesn't have an equivalent in dog language. Proper discipline alao has to be delivered in a calm cool and collected way to be effective. Don't think what you did was disciplining the dog. It was just pushing him back to collect your pet... which had no business being loose in the dog's area of the house. Which is what we would be having words about.

Of course you are lucky it was a golden. I work with much higher drive dogs. A smack would not deter them...

Dogs have developed in such a way that they can pick up on commands and gestures. Such as pointing.

The smack was not really an intentional thought process, for sure. If you read, it was more of a desperate knee-jerk reaction. I wasn't really looking to deter, but to get to my snake, which if I had not smacked the dog (which did push him) the snake would have been in the middle of a tug of war. As I mentioned, the puppy is not very well trained, and doesn't always listen to commands.

I can't even imagine if he were a bigger dog. Most assuredly, yes I would have a dead snake on my hands.

The kitchen is NOT a dog space. The dining area is NOT a dog space. My dogs, my parents dogs, knew better than to go into either of these rooms. And dogs should know better than to come up running at me for fun. That is poor discipline. If I were a threat, that's a different story. Perhaps I'm just pulling from experience with a pitbull/blacklab mix (which by the way.... he was NOT aggressive. At all. Pit bulls are NOT aggressive, they are stupid. They are BIG stupid and strong animals that can be easily trained to do things. Almost too much like a fricken horse.) He was a big dummy. I remember when he was a big puppy, he'd think he was still lap dog size and try and sit on us. I was a little kid then and this big black dog sitting on me.... But the point is, he knew better than to go into the kitchen or the dining area. It prevented begging. And teaching him not to run up at people for play was crucial because he doesn't know his own strength. There's other reasons too. But his command was always "down."

It doesn't matter how many dogs you have worked with, I know for an absolute fact that there are so many good ways to train and interact with a dog. And anyone who has owned a dog, has been around dogs, works with training dogs, would and should know this.

My point was simply that if a dog is running up to me, I assume it's wanting to attack. A big dog coming up to me like that to play might as well be considered an attack simply because dogs tend to play with their teeth and claws. "People space" is a personal command I use to get my dogs off me. Obviously, not going to work with a dog not trained on this command. It's not something a dog owner HAS to teach their dog, it's just a personal preference of mine, and it works for me.

My ex's german shepherd was an ex police bite dog (my ex being a cop was allowed to adopt her and condition her. One of the K-9 officers got fired.) And if you can imagine, I did NOT want that dog, as sweet as she was, playing with me without an actual toy between me and those teeth... That's where I got the actual command "people space" from. Before it was just "down." (this particular cop dog was taught to ignore "down" for a reason). This dog was not a people dog. I had to do very specific things the first month I moved in... (starting to feel a little sad now...) My ex was really good with her, and she warmed up to me eventually. To the point that she would be allowed to sleep in bed with us. She became insanely protective of me as well as him...

Not trying to argue at all here. Just sharing.

You know, no one here is saying that you are stupid. I too made a mistake when I got my first male normal ball python. I had him in a 20 gallon long tank and I had not latched the lid on properly one night before I went to bed. I woke up the next morning and he was gone. I was freaking out because I had a cat with very high prey drive and I have a dog also. Luckily my dog is chill as all get out but I was really worried that the cat would find the snake and potentially hurt him.

I tore my apartment apart to find that little snake. I ended up finding him hiding in the baseboard heater in my bathroom. My bathroom was located in my bedroom which was where my snake and tank were located. He had no injuries and was none the wiser of his little escape. My cat never got to him and luckily I didn't have the baseboard heat running either or he could have been badly burned.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we all make mistakes with keeping these snakes in the beginning and we think we know better when we actually don't. I read your other thread too about the pooping and digestion. My goodness that thread got derailed. I do not believe that these snakes feel emotions but that they are in a sense conditioned. You are lucky Wheatley escaped that dog without any injury. You really should let the poor little guy distress for a while. Lord knows I would be stressed out as hell if some big dog were coming after me.
Try to do your best with Wheatley and let the little dude have some very much needed time off from hanging out and handling.

For sure. I was calling myself stupid. I didn't think to check for the dog because he normally tries to run up to me as soon as I come down stairs... All that and besides, when my roommate isn't home, the dog is outside. What he was doing inside, I have no idea. It was not something I thought would happen and because of this I call myself stupid....

Forcing your juvenile ball python to endure the presence of the large predatory animal that had just terrorised it is psychological abuse.

Is it? I didn't keep him on the floor with the dog... I picked him up and thought being physically out of reach would help... I mean I wasn't dangling him in front of the dog, I had broken the line of sight on the dog's end and the dog was being calm and was sitting like a good boy, calmed down and was far enough away. Snakes are near sighted, aren't they? So he wouldn't be able to see him at that point??