I have had Vision, a dwarf BCI and my youngest snake, for roughly 9 months now. He will be a year old in July, so by snake standards he is still very much a baby. In the past 9 months, he’s gone from, for lack of better words, a bitey defensive asshole to a relatively passive and trusting creature who simply has Rules ™ on how, where, and when he can be touched. I used the same method to produce these results as I do with all of my reptiles, including my young snake of a notoriously aggressive and defensive species (Amazon Tree Boas) and have frequently been asked how I manage to get these animals that instinctively bite first and ask questions never to allow handling and pictures without drawing blood.

On my dog blog I’ve mentioned the concept of body autonomy a few times in relation to training dogs, and how it crosses over into husbandry in other species. In these posts I’ve detailed how I tame the larger birds at my job, how I teach my snakes not to bite me when I take them out, how I can successfully convince a thrashing dog to accept grooming without a fuss, how I teach cats to not turn into screaming demons for nail trims, and more. I also cover this in many of my dog training lectures at work as my students teach their dogs to allow grooming, nail trims, and medically related handling to prevent injuries and incidents when interacting with these animals. All of this relates back to body autonomy, and how we as humans have consistently ignored other species’ instinctive need to be autonomous.

I am no master animal trainer and do not play one on TV. I train pet dogs and service dogs and have begun to venture into competition, at one point I specialized in rehabbing aggressive and reactive dogs. I have trained various common pet animals in occasionally unconventional ways to do things that make life easier for the both of us, but I don’t claim to be anything special, because what I’m doing is not all that special. It is, however, uncommon for people to make these considerations with their pets and then they call in someone like me to fix a problem that didn’t need to start in the first place.

An example being: frequently on this website and others, the solution for convincing a biting snake not to bite you is to hold it still until it stops biting you. The snake will learn that biting you does not produce the desired result (you letting the snake go or putting it back in its cage) and thus will eventually stop biting you when you pick it up.

In the dog training world, we call this flooding and learned helplessness. It “works” because it produces what we wanted it to. The snake no longer bites when you pick it up. But it failed to address the root of the problem, and frequently if regular handling is not maintained the snake will return to biting you every time you touch it. The snake had learned that there was nothing it could do in order to make you stop doing what it didn’t like, and so had learned that it was helpless against the much larger human. The snake in this situation still doesn’t really want to be handled, it is merely tolerating it because it sees no other option.

While snakes have a much more primitive brain than dogs and thus a much more limited scope of emotions, aggression and violence are always expensive measures to use and thus are frequently considered last resort measures to make an unpleasant situation stop. They are costly in body resources- they take large amounts of energy, stress, and time to resolve, and wounds obtained from violence can become deadly with infection or severity. As a result, a bite should always indicate that whatever you are doing is so unpleasant to the animal you’re doing it to that they’re willing to risk their life in order to make you stop. The common pet snake knows it cannot win against an animal as large as a human. It is hoping you have not come to the same realization, and will not call its bluff.

This creates a problem. Like with dogs, backing off from a situation that is required after a bite will teach the snake that all they have to do to get you to leave them alone is to bite you. If I need to trim my dog’s nails, give him a bath, brush him, or have him examined by a vet, sure I could put him in a muzzle and force him to do it anyway, but it is counter-intuitive to teach him that all he has to do is bite me in order to get out of doing those things he may consider unpleasant. I need to be able to handle my snakes. This is not negotiable, just like the above things I do with my dogs are not negotiable. If I cannot handle them, I cannot check them for injury, disease, or distress. Backing off because my snake, or dog, has threatened to bite me is thus not a viable option. I must be able to complete the task, and the animal in question must let me.

Dogs, by comparison, are relatively easy to convince in this problem. I need to be able to do my dog’s nails. If I give him amazing treats on a good reward schedule, shower him with praise, listen to his body language to give him a chance to calm down and destress before pressing on, and remove my own negative emotions from the equation, he will learn to let me do his nails and even offer the position required for the task within a relatively short amount of time. He does not have to like having his nails done, but I can convince him to like he benefits he gets out of it. Cats and birds and small mammal pets like ferrets, rabbits, and rodents may be slower, but follow much the same way.

I can’t give a snake a treat. That’s not really how snake digestive systems work. I can’t give them a toy. I can’t give them praise. The subtleties of snake body language are much harder to read due to a lack of eyelids, ears, and limbs. Dogs, cats, birds, ferrets, all of these are social creatures that practice social bonding and feel an emotion similar to love (in the dog’s case, actually do feel love). Snakes are not social creatures and their brain is not capable of producing the chemicals involved in the emotion we call love. I cannot convince a snake to love me or to like being handled. That is not something their biology is able to do. Does that mean I have to rely on flooding and learned helplessness in order to get them to let me handle them?

I keep stressy species. While all reptiles are more than capable of stressing themselves to death, my current list of exotic pets includes a special needs ball python with a severe neurological condition, a brazilian rainbow boa specifically purchased from someone who breeds minimally stressy snakes because he got tired of the species’ reputation for being bitey assholes, and a dwarf bci locality (read: like a subspecies, but not different enough to get their own scientific name) known for being defensive bitey assholes. Previously, I had a special needs corn snake that was a defensive bitey asshole, an amazon tree boa that was remarkably handleable despite the species’ reputation for being aggressive and defensive bitey angry assholes, and a few foster ball pythons that came from neglect situations and had never been handled before leading to them being defensive bitey assholes. Stress is common in situations where aggression or violence is utilized, even if it is being utilized by the animal and not the human. If the stress from moving can kill my beloved ATB Hydra, why would I intentionally expose him to situations where he would feel required to use violence again and again until he learned that that was not a way out of the situation?

I did not flood my snakes. I hold them. They do not bite me. It has been a long time since any of them have even struck at me, and the majority of the bites and strikes I have received have been from when I was learning the snake in front of me or from me intentionally ignoring their body language and handling them a way I knew they didn’t like for whatever reason. Snakes do not bite without cause. Whether you, a human, can see that cause or not, snakes do not bite because they are vindictive or mean. As said, their brains are far too primitive to feel such complex emotions. Even wild snakes do not bite without provocation- whether you intentionally provoked them or not does not matter, simply whether they felt provoked enough to need to defend themselves possibly with their lives.

Vision came to me unsure of my intentions and of whether I could be considered safe. He certainly didn’t believe I should be picking him up. At two months old, the world is a scary place to a baby snake where nearly everything is bigger than you and nearly everything wants to kill or eat you. I do not blame him for doubting the warm giant cooing over him with grabby hands. To him, I’m sure I am some baffling mixture of hawk, bear, and wild canine. All of these things readily kill and eat snakes, all of these things may be persuaded to not kill and eat this particular snake if he bites them.

Instead of picking him up and allowing him to spend precious resources stressing himself to the point of repeatedly biting me- which hurts, by the way, so I don’t really want to be bitten any more than I need to be- I allowed him to show me things about him. I let him show me what he does when he’s nervous, when he doesn’t want to be bothered. I let him show me what he does when he’s curious and feels like investigating what’s in front of him. I let him show me how he does and does not like to be touched. Like many snakes, he seems to enjoy being scratched lightly under the chin. Like many snakes, he doesn’t seem to appreciate being tickled on the stomach. He prefers to create a “foot” about 2/3 down his body and use it as an anchored perch when exploring my hands. He does not want his tail to be touched. When he is nervous or unsure of potential danger, he will retract and coil himself into a loose ball. If pressed before he recovers, he will “expand” the “ball” quickly and vocalize. If he continues to be pressured, he will threaten to bite and will begin to try. If he is allowed to relax, he will recreate his “foot” and resume quietly investigating his surroundings.

Today, I took the lid off of his enclosure and lifted him out without a fuss. While this is not a first- we accomplished this task about 4 weeks in- only in the past few weeks has he not immediately retracted into his loose ball and required me to wait a few minutes for him to relax before touching him. Instead, he immediately made his “foot” and began to investigate, leaned against my finger as I scratched his chin, and maintained his confidence throughout the time I handled him. Sure, I could possibly get a similar result through the first method of flooding and teaching him that he is helpless against me, but I don’t need to. I can get a confident content snake that is not only tolerating my handling but also showing curiosity and intelligence without forcing him to accept my hands as things he has to deal with in his life.

My experience with the carpets at work, my roommate’s JCP, and my late ATB is that the semi arboreal snakes are very defensive of their cages (and somewhat territorial) as well as very reluctant to be forcibly unwrapped. If she is draped on/around/in something, cut your losses and accept that she probably does not want to be bothered. This was one of Hydra’s rules and remains one of Feanor’s- do not unwrap me from my branches or plants or I will bite you. If you *really* have to get her out, then you can take what she is wrapped on/in/around out and let her untangle herself from there, but I only do this in cases where it is medically necessary or when I need to sanitize and am working on a time crunch and can’t just come back later when the snake is not entangled with something its likely to guard.

The above mentioned snakes were/are always far more willing to be peaceful about coming out if we were doing this in the late afternoon and they were either in their hides, at/in their water bowls, just after misting (note: these guys have all enjoyed misting and have come out to bathe and drink just after, but Vision my dwarf BCI HATES misting and is MORE likely to bite me after misting, so YMMV), or while they were noodling around from one spot to the next. Timing is a big concern as my roommate and I both feed our snakes late at night and they have come to expect cage open at night = food, so they are mostly all in strike position when their cages are open and it’s dark.

Also as a general rule, please consider species in this too. I could handle my ATB, get him out, and perch him on things without him biting me, but I didn’t play with him like I do my BP or my BRB. If I want a snake to sit around the house and play videogames with, I’m not grabbing the biggest asshole in the house and asking him to sit and be still while I flail around with a WiiMote. I’ll grab my BP for that and stick him in my shirt and call it a day when he makes it clear that he doesn’t want to stay in my shirt anymore. That’s just not the kind of snake my ATB was and I went into owning him knowing he would never be at that standard. I just didn’t want him to bite me. I achieved that goal, but he was never a “take out and hang out” snake. He was a “take out, put on a thing, take a picture, put away” snake and likely he would have always been like that as the species is, as a whole, much more defensive and ornery than a BP. Feanor, my roommate’s JCP, is much like him. Valinor, her GTP, is much happier to just relax while out, but she takes him out once every couple months and again doesn’t pry him off his perch, just lets him come off on his own time and if he doesn’t show signs of wanting to come off 5 minutes after being taken out, oh well, he’s put back because he clearly doesn’t want to be bothered.

With my hogs I waited until they were on the surface to see if they would accept being out. My hogs were also fairly defensive of their cages but it’s been my experience that hogs are a little more willing to be confrontational than KSBs (hissing, flattening their neck, taking strike posture, etc) while still being fairly reluctant to bite (if headbutting twice doesn’t work we play dead!), so keep in mind that me opening the cage (from the top) while a hog is in burrow mode would result in a long hiss and the hog rising from the aspen like a sandworm. Not that hard to get them on the surface if all I have to do is open the cage and they do it automatically to chase me away!

My hogs were less likely to react so defensively at night and at noon. Hogs are a bit different than most commonly kept boids and pythons as they are diurnal and active during daylight hours (and also are colubrids? I think? so…). Even in the wild they are commonly found noodling around in broad daylight. I believe KSBs are nocturnal like most boas, so the timing will be a little different for you.

My roommate’s KSB doesn’t retract when she opens the cage, but she has a side door that opens much quieter with less fuss than a top access, so you may want to consider a cage change. As an aside, all of our semi arboreal snakes except the JCP and my BRB are in side access cages. Feanor and Barahir are in top access tubs until they are big enough to put in their adult cages which will be AP side access enclosures. I have personally seen a big difference in how willing a defensive or shy snake will be to let you convince it to come out when changing my ATB from his top access QT cage to his side access grow-out exo-terra. I went from actively dodging teeth every time the cage was opened to him being willing to show me how to follow his rules and maybe not bite me for once. If your cage is top access and you want to lessen her startle response when you open her enclosure, consider switching to side access. Remember, predators come from above. You hovering over the cage after the noise and vibration of opening the top and then reaching down to pick her up is like a giant bear-hawk with mange is probably about to eat her.

My roommate’s KSB does surface, though typically in a dark and quiet time of the night. Sit with her in the dark and silence overnight sometime and see how long it takes for her to relax and poke more of her body out. Once she’s out, see if she’ll let you scoop from the bottom with a flat hand. Go slow, and if she rejects the prospect, quit and try again a different day. Remember your species is shy and has terrible eyesight, and remember that most creatures that actively mess with snakes want to /kill/ snakes. She doesn’t know that the mangey beat-hawk poking her has friendly intentions.

me: 

Customer: “we found this snake outside idk what kind it is no I don’t have any supplies no I haven’t done any research no I’ve never kept a reptile”

Customer (x753): “we found this turtle he’s in a (random tiny size) tank I don’t know what kind we got him outside no we don’t have a filter”

Me

Okay I have a secret. This:

Is not inherently better than this:

Actually, for a ball python, the second one is better. They’re terrestrial snakes and really don’t want a lot of floor space. Snakes as a whole aren’t roaming animals. They like to find a nice hole to hide in and they move around when too hot/cold, too wet/dry, or too hungry to stay wherever they’ve hidden. It’s not a matter whether it’s “ghetto” (ugh) or even a “poor man’s tank”- the tub is probably the poor man’s custom reptile cage since those cost several hundred but that’s really where the similarity ends.

Quetzal’s got as much space as he needs and more. He needs space for two hides and a water bowl. He doesn’t need the branches because he’s a terrestrial snake, but I put them in anyway because they still will use them when exploring. He has a lot of floor cover as well which he doesn’t really need but I like giving a shy species plenty of hiding places.

So all of the “that’s kinda ghetto” and “but I’m not poor” responses I get when I suggest that they get a tub instead of fighting with a tank can go away now please.

Now how do I set such a creation up?

Well first you buy it and get a soldering iron and something to wipe off the melted plastic. Tub = $16 at Big Lots. Soldering Iron = $7 at RadioShack. Paper towels are easily obtained at a dollar store if you’re that stingy.

Then you poke holes in it with the heated iron. You can use a drill bit but that leaves a 90 degree angle on the hole (read: mildly sharp) and the iron leaves a rounded edge which I like better. Wipe off your iron after every hole because melted plastic can and will catch fire if left on too long, plus it starts smoking and smells like balls.

I waited 3 hours to make sure that the holes were dried and not letting off fumes. Toxic fumes + sensitive respiratory systems + 1 functional lung = bad things.

I added the substrate, hides, water bowl, and branches after I was sure and set up the cool thermometer.

And ground cover! Positioned strategically around the air holes so that ventilation isn’t sacrificed.

Bungee cords to keep him inside!  These are very tight and a pain to remove which is unfortunate but whatever works is good for me. Soooo much easier than a tank to set up and maintain. The difference for Q is astounding too, so from now on all of my snakes are going to either be in a tub or in a custom reptile cage. So done with tanks.

Compare that to my other snakes who are semi arboreal and most certainly take advantage of any floor space AND height I give them, and I’m going to repeat that I am not nearly as concerned giving my ball python a lot of floor space that he’s not going to use but would be far more concerned with giving the BRB, ATBs, and dwarf BCIs the space they need to move around because I know they both need and use it.

I would say that perhaps it’s because Quetzal is a special needs snake that he does better with a “smaller” enclosure than a 55gal tank, but in honesty my roommate’s BPs are all the same as well. Once they were switched away from such tall, huge enclosures they began to eat well and become much more confident.

Keep in mind that I am not advocating sticking a fully grown BP in a shoebox tub with paper towels and a water bowl and nothing else. There is enrichment and options presented outside of “sit here in the dark”. But to claim that these guys do better in a hugemungeous gigantic tank when I’ve personally seen the results of moving them to something a bit more compact is, well, silly, and what I was trying to say all those years ago when I wrote this.