Nov. 17: What is the hardest lesson you’ve learned from having pets?

Hi everyone!

The hardest lesson I’ve learnt from having pets is probably having to hold them gain after them biting me.

I have Ball/Royal Pythons, and sometimes when you’re feeding them they think that your hand is the food. . .but no, it’s your hand, but they don’t realise that so they hold on for a while. Luckily they’re only young, so their teeth aren’t that large (yet) but it still sort of stings.

What makes it a whole lot easier is that it seems like they actually realise that it’s not their food and look sad. They’re also really cute, so it makes it way easier to forgive them.

But the first time I got bitten I was feeding them both on my own, my dad being away, and my mum came with me from her house just to “observe from a safe distance” (she’s terrified of snakes), and then I got bitten. Firstly from my snake, who’s the nicer of the two, and then my sisters- who’s is much moodier.

I think aside from the biting, one of the hardest lessons to learn was how to stop your snake from freaking out when other people freakout at their mere presence.

Snakes get really freaked out when others freak out, and Ball Pythons curl up into a ball when their scared and it’s pretty bad if they do that when bred in captivity (don’t ask me why, I read it somewhere), so being able to clam your snake down is pretty important.

So this sort of links in with the first lesson, as you can’t freakout when your snake bites you because a) if you wave your arm/hand around when your snake is still attached you’ll harm the snake (no, I haven’t don’t this) and b) your snake will freak out and causing a snake to freak out would not be a fun experience.

What have you learnt form your pets?

GWR X