Two New Snakes!

[Partymember]

Originally Posted by pitbulllady

Don't let ANYONE tell you that cats and dogs don't have plenty of wild instincts! I KNOW better! Cats have NOT been bred for centuries as pets; for a long time, they were kept around only to kill vermin. Only the Egyptians actually made pets of them, and when that civilization fell, cats were for the most part thought of as agents of Satan. Even up until MY lifetime, people in rural areas would have never thought of petting or touching a cat and would have told you that doing so would give you ringworm, scabies and all sorts of horrible diseases, and that cats would steal the breath of newborn babies. The notion of breeding cats as pets is a fairly recent trend. Many species of snakes ARE selectively bred, and have been now for over half a century, for specific traits and characteristics. There are registeries and stud books for Corn Snakes, Ball Pythons, Boa Constrictors and Reticulated Pythons just as there are for dogs and cats, and there are also conformation competition shows, with different "breed" or variety categories. The only reason that snakes are not thought of as "regular pets" is due to the same sort of misinformation and wives' tales that kept cats relegated to the barnyard, IF they were tolerated at all. I've had to handle many an injured cat, dog and snake, and a SNAKE is FAR less likely to freak out and bite you than a dog or cat in that circumstance. All domesticated animals are derived from wild animals, and again, don't let anyone tell you that dogs and cats do not have plenty of wild instincts. I've had real wild cats-cougars, bobcats, leopard, African Jungle cats, even a Scottish Wildcat, and they are not that different from my regular old cats, just bigger. I've also had full-blooded wolves, foxes and Dingoes, and they have the exact same instincts that my Catahoulas, Pit Bulls, and Akitas, and even my Standard Poodle, have. They bark, they pee on trees, they dig holes in the yard, and do everything that domesticated dogs do. The only difference is that domesticated breeds have been developed to do one or two things really well, like retrieving, catching and holding dangerous animals, guarding property, etc., while wild dogs have all of those traits but to lesser degrees. The idea that snakes cannot be pets or cannot be trustworthy as pets because they haven't been kept as such for as long as some other animals just doesn't hold water. Cattle have been around as domesticated animals far longer than cats have, or rabbits, or hamsters, but given a choice between reaching in a cage with a 3-foot albino Corn snake, and going into the pasture with a 2,500-lb. Santa Gertrudis bull, I know which MY choice would be!

pitbulllady

get a timberwolf is on my list of things to do. Uncle Jim had one. Crazy dude. Had it stuffed when it died