Thought about others views on snake owners and their pets lol.....

[Kysenia]

First of all, I have never lived my life or made choices about things based on what others thought. When it comes to owning a snake and peoples general ignorance and impression of snakes...it falls along one of the biggest problems throughout our world.....People in general have way to many opinions on things they have no real information or knowledge about.

Anyways here are a few interesting double standards I always think of when people go....oh my god you snakes? lol


Why is it acceptable when peoples cats dont want to be pet anymore and bite the heck out of your hand for your to stop? Why is it acceptable to keep dogs in the house that are trained to attack a stranger that enters the premises? This is ok and acceptable...but the idea a snake may strike if you startle it or it is nervous makes them the creatures from H E double hockey sticks.


Why is it ok to lock up dogs in homes all day and kennels 95% of their life but to keep a ball python in an environment close to what they live and hide in Africa unacceptable?


Why is it mean to feed snakes frozen or live rodents but it is ok for us to feed our dogs and cats meat/chicken/fish?


Why is it ok to accept pets that cause thousands of dollars worth of damage in our homes as they go from a baby to adult ok...but having a snake that doesnt make you sneeze, unroll the toilet paper, pee on the floor, shread the furniture, cover your home with hair a bad thing?


This list could go on forever lol but the point of the matter is this. The answer to the above questions is based around a couple of things....

Conditioning and Perception.......this is how we live our lives and are influenced with our choices and believe it or not controlled. In short...dont let others perception of what you love or your desire to raise a snake bother you........if they are open to information try to provide it......offer for them to come and take a look.....for the ones that wont accept information, they are the ones that you chuckle at and go.....

You know you may have a point......just last night I got bit bad by my snake and since then I have been thinking of gettin rid of them. Then show them your hand with 4/5 fingers showing as if the beast got the finger good...lol

[frankykeno]

Owning snakes is a funny thing, especially when you own quite a few. Here's a typical reaction I get all the time.

"You own snakes...a LOT of snakes...but...but...you are so NORMAL looking!"



Okay so I'm in my late 40's, okay I'm a mom of 4 and yes I have driven a mini-van full of kids and stinky hockey equipment but what do they expect? Some folks seem to think that if you like cold blooded animals you must be some freak with multiple piercings (not that I personally think that's all that freaky) or do drugs or be outside societal norms. Somehow they cannot get around the fact that the 5'1" lady who is their kid's school library lady goes home and wrangles an almost 9 foot boa (with help of course). It's hilarious to me to see some of the reactions I get from other adults. Kids mostly just think I'm cool and heck at my age and with my own teenagers at home - I'll take anyone thinking I'm cool in any way.

[frankykeno]

My whole take on the dogs/cats vs snakes as pets thing is this. Human beings generally are a greedy species. We want something back from what we do. Dogs and cats, to some degree, give us their attention, they fawn over us for remembering to feed and care for them. Snakes down fawn (it's beneath them LOL). You care for them, they may notice or they may hiss at you and ignore you. Snakes require a person who can read subtle response, that can go beyond the obvious sometimes. For some people this just will never cut it. They don't get that you can care for a species that you will never know if it really cares back.

I've seen people express shock that anyone would rescue a snake. Like somehow a snake doesn't deserve the same chance as Fluffy the poodle. It's funny to me to have to explain to another adult, I assume one that is rational and reasonably intelligent, that yes snakes feel pain, have needs, can be abused or neglected and deserve a chance for a good life.

One quick example of this oddity. I know a woman, a professional lady with a responsible job, a smart woman. She owns a pet dog. This dog, on a regular basis, growls at her. This dog basically runs her life in many ways. She actually laughs at how her dog growls to make her do things! This same woman is shocked that I would own snakes. She thinks they are scary and dangerous. Personally I think it's dangerous to own a dog (and this is a good sized dog) that thinks it can show it's teeth to me because I didn't run and get it a bloody dog treat quick enough. People are just odd!

[Oxylepy]

Welcome to the world

Seriously, though, this is life, these are humans, this is how we act. If you put yourself into a minority group people outside of that group know little to nothing about the group you have chosen to put yourself into (or were born into) and will either generalize based on people who they know in that group already, or they will just imagine all kinds of things about you because that is what they think of that group. It's just general human behavior.

As for the question on feeding them mice/rats: Since we don't have to see the fish/cow/pigs that are going into our or our animals food then we don't care. But if we have to see or think about the animal that is going into this food directly then it becomes a horrible thing because an animals has to DIE for it to be eaten.

Walk a normal person through a slaughterhouse some time and they will probably feel horrible for the animals, but they have no problem picking up a pound of pre-packaged ground beef at the store. Why? We protect our minds by separating the image of a slaughterhouse from our hamburger. But you can't do that with a snake's food. You actually have a frozen or live rodent in your hands, you have to thaw it or watch it run around, and then you feed it to the snake.

This is the same reason so many people "save" mice/rats from the pet store. Because OMG THAT'S INHUMANE.

[frankykeno]

How very true. I've actually met parents who avoid telling their small children that the pork chop from the grocery store was ever a living thing. It's not like you need to go into detail at the dinner table but these folks actually seem to think it will scar little Johnny forever if the kid realizes his roast beef used to moo. How ridiculous!

Maybe because I grew up in a family that hunted I just always accepted that some animals are meant for food. That's their role in the scheme of things and as long as you respect them for that, well it all seemed to me growing up that that was just the natural order of things.

[Slide]

Owning snakes is a funny thing, especially when you own quite a few. Here's a typical reaction I get all the time.

"You own snakes...a LOT of snakes...but...but...you are so NORMAL looking!"

I generally respond by saying, "Your fears and prejudices aren't my problem. I've overcome most of mine...when you going to work on yours?"

[frankykeno]

I generally respond by saying, "Your fears and prejudices aren't my problem. I've overcome most of mine...when you going to work on yours?"

Oh gawd may I borrow that please!

[Slide]

Oh gawd may I borrow that please!

Absolutely!

[frankykeno]

I swear I want that printed on a t-shirt LOL. Best words I've seen written in ages....thanks! You need to put that in your signature line, it's fantastic.

[anatess]

On that hamburger note...

We went to Red Lobster a few months ago and the kids went ooohing and aahhhing over the lobster tank. Then, of course, my husband orders a lobster and he went and picked one up from the tank. My 7-year-old filed a massive protest about how his dad is cruel to lobsters. So, we explained to him that the hamburger he ordered came from a cow and his brother's chicken fingers came from a real chicken. He then professed he will be a vegetarian because he can't be cruel to cows. The waiter arrives with his burger and my son said he'll just eat the fries. His brother is happily munching on his chicken. So then my son took a bite of his burger. And so, I asked him, what made you change your mind? And he said as long as he doesn't have to see the cow get killed, it's okay. So then, we got the snakes and he fed it a live rat and he said, it's okay because it doesn't look like the rat was hurt too much and there's no blood. Ahh, kids. If you expose them to all kinds of stuff and let them form their own principles, they are quite capable of educating themselves.