Is That Venom?

Little doodlé, if you will.

(This post is from my old account, which I deleted. It happened a year ago, but the message is still the same, so I will reblog it again in his memory. If this can help anyone, It will be worth it)

For everyone that didn’t know me before hand, this little cuddle thing here is my boy, Jormundgandr.

Jor perished two days ago. There’s nothing that we could do to help him, I’m not asking for “likes” or “follows”, but I want to explain his story. I adopted him when he was barely 30cm long. He was a Python Regius, a specie around 165cm in his adulthood. He was a baby, but even then most people considered him dangerous. Because he was a snake. Because snakes have no feelings. Because pythons are stressed easily. Almost everybody told me to keep him in his terrarium almost constantly, but it seemed unfair to me. Instead of keeping the terrarium in the humidity and heat necessary to him, I heated the entire room, so Jor could roam all over the place. His favorite spots were in my lap when I was reading or around my headbed when we were sleeping. 

The first time I put him in the bureau to sleep, he grabbed a plushie and threw it to the ground. Hearing the noise, I went to see what happened, and immediately he leaped right into my arms, so I had to put him in my headrest. It being summer in my city, the temperature was adequate to him, so I promptly began to go everywhere with him, as he wouldn’t let go of my hair or clothes.

I travelled with him in the subway, went to the bank, to the supermarket, to take a drink… He usually went around my neck like a necklace or entangled himself in my hair or around my ponytail.

While I sat, he would cuddle with me. Most people were curious about a snake in the subway or in a café, but instead of becoming stressed, as he had been in the streets since a baby, he let everyone pet and grab him, sometimes even prompting himself strangers to initiate the contact. His behaviour towards me was very expressive. He recognized me out of everyone. When he was sleepy, he came to me. When he was thirsty, he told me. Sometimes he didn’t want people to pet him and he literally jumped into my arms. Jor didn’t like people touching his head, but let me kiss him on the mouth every time I was very happy or a bit nostalgic. He promptly began to sense my mood-swings and came over to me when I was a bit sad. But the most surprising was the time he sneaked on my (pun intended) friend’s cat. He saw him and wanted to play. Of course, the feline scratched him, playfully. But he didn’t bite, he didn’t attack, only curled himself up very scared. We went running to the vet, and he was fine, only a bit scratched. Only then the man noticed a little bite in his neck, from the mice that he was supposed to eat. He was so fucking docile that his own food attacked him instead of the opposite! But his scales were very bright, sign of healthy and happiness, the wounds cured quickly. But that wasn’t the surprise. When I entered the room where jor was being examined, he was curled in a little ball of misery, and then I approached him, crying. When the snake sensed my touch, uncurled, stretched his neck and deposited his little mouth to my lips, as he ever did when he felt my sadness. Jor made this same movement every time he saw me cry… And not only this. He ate with me, bathed with me, and even slept with me. Three different vets said to me that jormundgander was convinced I was his mom. In the last comic convention in my city, where I had a little shop, he came and stayed with me all day.

He was on the table, playing with the merchandise, cuddling with people and letting us dress him in little cosplays.

When tired he would simply hide in my mobile case for an hour or so and then came out again (unless there was a cat, he was terrified of them after the incident).

That day he decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble to drink from a bottle cap and began to drink directly from my lips. But a few days ago, he couldn’t breathe. Only then we found out that the little bite in his neck had healed, but let a minor infection inside him that expanded to his lungs. He was so happy all the time that his scales never faded as it happens with sick serpents and none suspected anything. And even when he was dying, with me crying as I held him in my arms, even when he was barely moving and didn’t let anyone touch him (when capable of moving), he cuddled in my lap, searching with his head to touch my skin and made little movements as if to say that he was fine. So for all the dickhead people outta here that think those animals are dangerous by birth, that they had no feelings nor are they capable of getting attached. What about all the cuddling, the baths, the shiny scales? The kisses when I was sad? Am I supposed to believe that this all was a misinterpretation? That what all the fucking people around me saw was an illusion? So I will only say one thing to everyone that says and thinks that snakes have no sentiments: That’s BULLSHIT! Maybe his feelings are way more primitive than ours, or that of dogs, but those are feelings nonetheless, and they matter. So this is the story of Jormurgander, the evidence that if you show your love to them since youth, they will return your feelings, and will be as loyal and lovely as any other pet.

Let’s start with your basic husbandry. Ball pythons are from tropical Africa. They need high humidity and warm ambient temperatures. I really don’t think your room could support that. The warm end of his thermogradient needed to be a constant 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Can you honestly tell me you maintained 60% humidity and 95 degree temperatures in your bedroom? There’s a reason we keep ball pythons in terraria. It’s so we can provide safe and healthy microclimates for them. It’s so that we can control their world so that they are healthy. By forcing your snake to sleep with you and interact with you so constantly, you were taking away his ability to choose what part of a regulated microclimate he was existing in; you were forcing him to exist in this strange, uncomfortably dry world. I don’t know if you ever kept him in his terrarium- you didn’t say- but I do know that forcing him to sleep with you (instead of letting him roam around a nice big terrarium as a nocturnal animal would like to do) was extremely unhealthy. I’m going to guess that even though you say it was summer where you were he was chilly most of the time. And uncomfortable. Most of the time ball pythons like to climb, but you say he was constantly on you, cuddling. The cuddling? That’s not cuddling. When humans touch, it triggers a wave of oxytocin, the “bonding hormone.” It makes us feel good and happy.

Snakes don’t produce oxytocin.

What was happening was that you were warm. Your body temperature is 98.6 degrees, which is very cosy for a ball python. He wasn’t hugging you, he was leaching your body heat.

You taking him out in public was dangerous as well. What if some café owner had seen him and panicked and called Animal Control? Even if he’s an emotional support animal (which you did not mention him being), you don’t actually have the legally protected right to take him anywhere except on an airplane. He could have gotten sick from all the public contact. You say he wasn’t stressed, but how do you know? What do you think the stress behaviors of a ball python are?

It was also dangerous to ever allow him around a cat. Cats have gram-negative bacteria in their saliva. This gets under their claws and multiplies as they groom. Gram-negative bacteria have a protective layer that makes it harder for the immune system to fight off. As for his mice biting him… Why weren’t you feeding him frozen prey? Did you try? Let me guess, he refused to eat the frozen mice. He wasn’t not eating because he was docile, he wasn’t eating because he was constantly stressed. Snakes don’t eat when they’re scared or uncomfortable with their environment.

The shiny scales? Your snake had stuck shed. It’s not healthy for a snake to have a stuck shed. Stuck sheds are a sign of improper humidity or temperatures.

The baths were also a mistake. Snakes can’t thermoregulate like we do, so whatever temperature the water is at is what they’re stuck with. And we humans tend to run water much hotter than a snake is comfortable with. In general, you shouldn’t run the water for a snake’s bath (which should only happen rarely and when necessary- like if they have a stuck shed or crawled through their poop) any warmer than lukewarm- it should only feel mildly warm on the inside of your wrist. Tub cleaning chemicals and the chemicals in soap are also toxic to snakes, and if he consumed any of the water, even by accident, he could have fallen ill- which could have contributed to his demise.

And now I need to tell you about anthropomorphism, which is the primary reason I’m reblogging this post. Bad husbandry is correctible, but what’s really dangerous here is this mindset that your snake is as emotionally sophisticated as you think he is. Snakes don’t feel love. They can’t. They’re physically incapable of feeling love. They have emotions- aggression, curiosity, comfort- but they don’t love. You have attributed distinctly human emotions to an animal that literally does not have the brain structure or hormonal presence to feel these things. Even a mammal wouldn’t display many of the behaviors you attribute to this snake’s conscious decisions. Snakes can’t read your mind. They can maybe pick up on some body language- if you’re big and threatening, the snake will be scared, for instance, but he wasn’t picking up on your mood swings. He was just a snake doing snakey things. But by reading into his behavior with these human emotions, you created this image of a snake in your mind that’s more akin to the behavior of a snake in a fantasy novel. Snakes have emotions, but not the ones attributed in this post.

That snake didn’t think you were his mum. Ball pythons have no interactions with their parents post-hatching and there’s no evidence that they even recognize their parents. Snakes scatter pretty quickly because adult snakes of many species will eat baby snakes. I don’t actually believe that three vets told you in earnest that you were his mum- and if they did, I’d like their names so that the reptile community can know that these vets support dangerous anthropomorphism and make their veterinary choices accordingly. Responsible vets would never tell you that it’s ok to free-roam a ball python in a bedroom.

The kisses? Weren’t kisses. They were just your snake booping you with his face. My snake does that too and it’s not because he loves me, it’s because my mouth smells interesting and he’s curious. Snakes are gloriously curious and that’s part of the charm of owning one- to see how their natural behaviors allow them to thrive in our care. That’s if we provide what they need for their existence. There are millions of happy, healthy pet ball pythons in this world and none of them are sleeping with their owners. Instead, they’re living in terraria. They’re not jumping into their owners’ arms or kissing them on the lips; they’re engaging in natural behaviors in an unnatural environment and exploring things to satisfy their own curiosity, not your emotional needs.

So, yes. This was a misinterpretation. This was you placing human emotions on a snake. Everybody makes mistakes, but I just feel that had you read a single care sheet and thought for a moment about why the widely-accepted care practices are so widely accepted, this tragedy would not have happened. I hope you take this into consideration before buying another animal because keeping a snake this way will only end in the same emotionally devastating results. I know this hurts to hear- I know you really, truly loved your snake and you did what you thought was best for him. But sometimes what we think is the best because of our emotions isn’t the best for their care. Their physical well being depends on us. They can’t make choices about their care- they are pets. They don’t have that agency. It’s up to us as pet owners to do what’s right, and sometimes that means putting our emotions and desires aside for the sake of their physical health. Trust me, nobody knows that better than me. I lived this.

This is Kaiju. The love of my life. The best thing that’s ever happened to me.

She’s an Argentine black and white tegu, and I thought that I could free-roam her safely and happily. I set things up so that she had humid hides, hot spots, everything. This decision was made with what I thought was her best interest in mind- I thought that because she’s a big, active lizard that free-roaming would be good for her.

And then I saw this.

And I almost threw up when I did. This is an x-ray of Rex, a tegu who had been free-roamed for much longer than Kaiju. His owners treated him like a king- they gave him what he wanted to eat and let him roam and live with them like part of the family. But this took a toll on Rex, a price paid by his arthritic joints and digestive system and kinked spine. A price he could have paid with his life. I knew then that even though I was trying so hard to take good care of my baby, she was going to suffer if I kept things up. So I went out and got an enclosure and got honest with myself about what she really needed and got over my own ego and ideas to provide what was best for her, not me.

is how this person sent me a bunch of messages before they deleted

screaming at me for ruining their cosplay hobby

1. Oh my god, I wish this was made up. I don’t want ANY of it!