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Pets

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Lol! Tom was in Belize. I did buy some Pope’s and Eyelashes in Bushnell though. The hot room manager brought out a King and five seconds later I’m like “Ok, thanks!” Incredible but very itimidating.
The guy who was teaching me brought out a lengthy Mamba that was “tame” and laid it in my hands. I wish I had pictures. I was sweating like I do when I work on live 3 phase circuits.
That dude was nuts. Knotted up finger from a Canebrake bite, first thing he said when asked what he wanted to buy in Bushnell: “What’s going to kill me the fastest?” He walked out with a Saw Scale viper.

I don’t free handle anything anymore. Too old and slow. I miss my arboreal vipers though.
 
Such a rewarding hobby to work with such animals. I never tried to learn and get my hours in the correct way and it hurt my confidence in things I could safely keep. Very irresponsible of me as a young man. Luckily I still have all my limbs and my life . Reptile hobby had really taken a dive the last 5 years . Which might be for the better. I know back in your day probably everything was imported and WC. 5 years ago almost everything was available captive bred . He’ll NERD has CB crocodile monitors . Blows my mind . Things have come a long way . Sad that kids would rather play with their phones than a bad ass animal but hey . We all don’t like the same shit I guess
 
1989:
Blue tongue skinks $900
Bearded dragons $900
In 1995, Womas were selling for $9k at expos!

I remember the first Frilled Dragons coming ashore and being labeled as “New Guinea”. Yea, right…. Lol!
At that time nearly all Ball pythons were adult, wild caught and loaded with ticks. We used to buy dozens of them, clean them up, give them Flagyl and Pancur and resll to stores. Fast forward to 1994 and I was buying 100 lots of captive hatched babies at $6/each. Same price for V. salvator and V. niloticus.

Same time I knew a guy who had about a 3 foot V. salvadori in his store. The kid working there was bitten on his forearm and it severed a bunch of tendons going to his hand, essentially stopping the function. Needed surgey.
Crutchfield has a skull on his desk from a smaller one of these lizards. You could quickly tell the anatomy of the jaw was not like other varanids. More like a Komodo.
I adopted a six foot, 40 rats a week eating Salvator (Aisian Water Monitor for all non reptile readers). He didn’t ever really scare me and I’m not sure his bite would be as bad as the Croc monitor.

I have lost a lot of blood over the years, I too love big lizards. I would take a Black Roughneck back to Mexico with me but I’m not paying a grand for one.

Have you been bitten by anything hot? I was bitten twice field collecting. Both were little Sidewinders and I was being careless. In the middle of the Borrego Desert, staring at my hand. Thinking and waiting. Thankfully both dry bites.
That was my mid-20s. No more crazy shit after that.
 
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One of my boys, 11 yo.
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I got sucker punched by a male Kanburi on my lunch break. 21 years old, came home to eat and noticed some shed from the female on the substrate. For some odd reason it had to come out right then ha. You know how tiny those males are. That joker was laying right under the foliage behind the shed. Almost like I forgot he was in there . One fang hit my pinkie nail and the second right on the tip of my finger . I squeezed that finger so hard I tried to explode it like a hot dog in the microwave . Apparently he couldn’t get enough meat to inject or he was just teaching me a life lesson . Scared the piss out of me . Man there is no creature on earth like those big water monitors. Short story . Bought a CB water from Vital Exotics . Tiny male . He became a extremely large eating machine and was the families best friend. He would sneak pebbles out of the pitbulls bowls as they ate . Built a 8x10 massive enclosure in my converted garage aka gym. Taking him from his 6x6 in the house (reptile room) into that big enclosure completely melted his confidence. He became the most violent, scared, dangerous animal in the world . There’s nothing like being trapped in a 8x10 room with a 6 foot male that is shitting and trying to murder you at the same time . 2 years of trying to rebuild trust and could never get him back. I’m a big boy, not scared of much . He had me running a few times a week. He’s in a outdoor enclosure in Waxahachie Tx now. Massive beast . Still won’t let anyone touch him.
 
Lots of cat guys on here. I’m surprised. Never really cared much for cats since they destroy my couches but always had one. My wife and kids love the dumb shit they do. Which is fuckin hilarious. I had 5 pitbulls in 2017. 2 females , 3 males. Inside only . 2 were puppies . Slept with my kids . I repo cars for a living so I work day and nights . Always had protection for my family when I’m gone at night and always took one in the truck with me . One day a male started picking on my oldest dog (female ) and she was clearly the Boss of the pack . Idk why he felt the need to test her. All dogs were fixed . I made it a point to keep them away from each other . One morning I yelled at my son. Let the dogs out and I said to myself that’s not a good idea but ignored that feeling . I’m in the shower and my son comes yelling dad the dogs are fighting . I fly outside butt ass naked and the female and another male had the instigator and were literally ripping him apart . I jumped in and tried to fight them off but with no luck. Ran to the kitchen and grabbed the gun. Had to dispatch both and took the male to get out to sleep. Injuries too severe . It hurt my heart but scarred my son pretty bad . So now I’ve got 2 puppies left and thought fuck well hopefully they are not gnna act like that . 4 months ago on of those puppies who is 3 busted out of his kennel while we were gone and killed my wifes cat which he’s grown up with his whole life . I realized then how much that cat meant to me . That pit was my best friend and went to work with me everyday for 3 years . I put him down . I will never in my life own another pitbull once my female now is gone . I treated those dogs with respect and nothing but love . Maybe I just have bad luck but my kids have been emotionally fucked and I’ve lost a lot of dogs I loved more than most humans . I don’t understand why they have to be so aggressive. Very sad . Seeing Seattle’s cat brought back memories . Our cat looked similar to yours . Definite void in my life not seeing her swinging from the curtains and making biscuits on my couch
 
I have had a few notable pets.

1st would be Sassy the Cat. She was Sassy too...This cat could jump as high as any I had ever seen. Loving as all can be though. She would sit on my shoulder while I push mowed the acre of land at my parents house. Broke my heart when that cat died. She got into the under hood of my dad's car and he started it. She made it through the to the next morning. I held her all night and refused to goto school. Only time my father ever said sorry to me as a young lad. I come to find out he had a cat when he was my age name "Tom". We also had gotten another cat after sassy.... named Tommy...lol He never allowed pets until we got 12ish. In his eyes it was save us the heart break of losing one. I understand when his cat passed away he was devastated. I found this out from my uncle at my fathers funral back in 2012. Same Uncle passed on a few years later. I have no family left on his side. They were 8 total. DO have some cousins but we never really got along.

Past that I have had several rabbits and even rain a rabbitry for a few years.
My favorite rabbits Dutch American, Californians, Florida Whites, Harlequins, Havanas, Mini Rex, Polish U.S.,

I have several awesome rabbits
Baby Girl, Checker Bun, Riley B. Bun, Fatty Bun, Oreo.
 
Touchy subject.
Charmers used to sew mouths shut and after a couple of months when they die from starvation, theyjust go catch a new one. The practice still goes on but now they use crazy glue (cyanoacrylate adhesives). Snakes can go months and sometimes much longer without eating. Without water? I don’t know. If the mouth were only to be partially closed to prevent biting, they could still drink I think, because of the “pumping” way snakes consume water.

As I understand it, more humane Charmers will just get used to a particular snake (they do have “personalities”) and just be careful. The snakes merely move according to the charmer’s movement. There is no training involved. Then when the snake gets conditioned to this game of being used for amusement, it very likely stops hooding. Time to get a new snake.
The whole flute music thing is just showmanship. Snakes don’t have ears.

Dano22, did you have elapids? Although I trained with a guy in Florida with them to have the skillset, I never kept any. I only had Bitis, Atheris, Crotalus, Trimeresurus and Bothreichis. My rule was to keep only things that were “not likely to kill me”.
I was in Kalifornia so keeping them was already pretty sketchy and VERY illegal. I had research permits to collect L. zonata and was always afraid of losing them. My mentors at the university were aware of my hobby and always were admonishing me.

The story of my buying a bunch of stuff in Florida and bringing on the plane with me is pretty funny. Pre 9/11 of course.

However I detest snakes, your story makes me sad, really.
 
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Many people tell here about the loss of their animals. Well, I have my story, too. When I was a child I had a parrot - a corella. It is a medium sized bird. I loved him very much, we had some kind of connection. He constantly sat on my shoulder or chest. He flew to me when I called him and was already starting to talk (he was 1 year old). We left home one night for my grandmother's birthday. When we returned, I went into my room and did not pay attention to his cage, and my younger sister (she was 5 years old) came up and said, "Hey, look how he is sleeping." The parrot lay on his back, spreading wings. I looked and realized that he was not sleeping. I told her that he died and began to laugh. I don't know why I started laughing, it was a strange reaction. All night I slept very badly and I constantly dreamt that he was alive. For several more days I was devastated. After that, I didn’t have a pet for a long time.
 
Many people tell here about the loss of their animals. Well, I have my story, too. When I was a child I had a parrot - a corella. It is a medium sized bird. I loved him very much, we had some kind of connection. He constantly sat on my shoulder or chest. He flew to me when I called him and was already starting to talk (he was 1 year old). We left home one night for my grandmother's birthday. When we returned, I went into my room and did not pay attention to his cage, and my younger sister (she was 5 years old) came up and said, "Hey, look how he is sleeping." The parrot lay on his back, spreading wings. I looked and realized that he was not sleeping. I told her that he died and began to laugh. I don't know why I started laughing, it was a strange reaction. All night I slept very badly and I constantly dreamt that he was alive. For several more days I was devastated. After that, I didn’t have a pet for a long time.

Believe it or not laughing in situations like that is more common than you would think. It is because you are unable to process the feelings you are having.... So it is not that you are/were bad person... It was just that you were emotionally overwhelmed and went to one of the most basic responses.... laughing... It happens when men fight too...especially those that do not know how to fight... We have all seen the guy laughing before a fight and telling everybody how bad ass he is... reality is he is shitting his pants.... Happens with death many times too...
 
Believe it or not laughing in situations like that is more common than you would think. It is because you are unable to process the feelings you are having.... So it is not that you are/were bad person... It was just that you were emotionally overwhelmed and went to one of the most basic responses.... laughing... It happens when men fight too...especially those that do not know how to fight... We have all seen the guy laughing before a fight and telling everybody how bad ass he is... reality is he is shitting his pants.... Happens with death many times too...
Thanks for your support and understanding.

I know it was definitely not a joyful laugh. It was an uncontrollable laugh. I'm not saying this is bad, just unusual. And I still feel bad about it deep down.
 
Thanks for your support and understanding.

I know it was definitely not a joyful laugh. It was an uncontrollable laugh. I'm not saying this is bad, just unusual. And I still feel bad about it deep down.

Never apologize for being Human.. it's when you have no feelings,here's a problem..
 
Awesome story
 
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