thoughts on snakes! 🐍🐍🐍
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:
How are you? And hey, what are your thoughts on snakes?
