#leodore

Hiiii thank you for the ask!

Thoughts on snakes: love them, adorable noodles and really cool behaviorally, I enjoy puzzling out their decision making processes, they move in really cool ways and their scales are a favorite sensation. My snakes are actually a part of how I manage my anxiety! Holding a snake means keeping your body calm, moving intentionally, and paying close attention to the life you're holding close. You get to enjoy the lovely presence of a friend, and calm yourself through the scale sensation, slow movements, and breathing in a controlled manner to calm your muscles. And companionship! And watching them! A more common analog would be like watching a fish tank - very calming and amusing to watch my boys going about their business, and you get cute shots of them basking or drinking or climbing or whatever else. I personally love when my colubrids dig new tunnels, because they almost always come up wearing a dirt hat.

Thoughts also: they are not treated well in the pet trade and many other contexts. Part of this is exploitation on various scales, part is lack of (or mis-) understanding. Education helps with a lot of this! I'm working with Leo and Shogun (dzd is sweet, but easily stressed and wiggly at this point) in the hopes that they can one day accompany me to outreach events to normalize snakes in people's eyes, and to spread useful information - resources on keeping them well, for example. Ideally you do your own research before buying a pet, but there are so many conflicting opinions in snake keeping, and pet store employees likely will not know the needs of an exotic pet, but too many people take them home without that preparation. Anyway thoughts. Education, access to it, access to resources, and community involvement are good things.

I think snakes are very good creatures, and I look forward to spending more time with them. Here is a photo of DZD sticking his head out from under the substrate like a garden eel:

My noodles are such good noodles

It was feeding night for two of them (leo and dzd) and they both ate so well!!! Leo ate one backwards and made me nervous, and dzd missed a few times and hung part of his body off a ledge, for some reason, but when he was done he went right back in his tank!

Exactly what he was supposed to do!

Dzd (honduran milk snake) loves food so much. In the process of trying to eat a mouse, he bit the air several times, and himself. Twice.

Leo (Bredli python) stuck his nose in a hole he definitely does not fit through in the lid of his tank once I brought the mouse over, he was up near the top at the start and took a minute to figure out he needed to go down.

Options:

- Climb over fence. Probably stressful to snake, possibly even injurious to one or both of us. Shortest, fastest way back to the house

- Walk barefoot over the blackberries to get up the hill. Already accomplished once with minimal injury, and happy noodle. Possible thorn / probable cut in my foot. Not a desirable option, but probably can do.

- Walk all the way around. Much longer, requires walking on concrete, possibly stressful for snake. Most sane option, but I never enjoy it, and I also don't have a mask so there's a potential health hazard since that route involves walking on a public sidewalk for about 50 feet