Cute New Member of the Family; Python Regius

Velvet just "hanging out"

 

On Wednesday I received a new baby Ball Python. She's a little 6 month old female Butter Black Pewter (a morph made up of several co-dominant genes; Butter, Plack Pastel, and Cinnamon). See many of the different color and pattern mutations these beautiful snakes come in here at the World of Ball Pythons where you can learn just about everything you want to know about these wonderful creatures.

 

I don't have a video camera or a cell phone to take videos with but did manage to put together a slideshow type video to post on Youtube;

 

I named her Velvet because she has such a soft gradient look to her. My favorite Ball Python morphs are ones such as Soulsuckers, Mystic Potions, Purple Passions, Super Phantoms, (all very expensive) but she has that look, so when I saw her back in July I just had to have her!

 

I did a payment arrangement with the breeder, and 5 months later and after alot of saving and sacrifice my little bundle of joy was delivered via Fed Ex! I was so excited. It was the perfect start to the holiday season.

 

I had her cage all ready and waiting for her, complete with heating pad, a branch I had attached some fake foliage around, a natural-looking rock style water dish, thermometer, and hygrometer to monitor temperature and humidity, and a red plastic folgers coffee container used as a hide so that she can curl up in a nice secure space when she wants some privacy.

 

When I first opened up the little bag she came in I was surprised at just how petite she was; her neck only about as big around as a pencil and her head the width of my thumb!

 

Ball Pythons when full grown reach about 3-5 feet in length, and can get pretty thick in proportion to their length.

 

She currently eats rat pups (baby rats with fur already but only about 2.5 inches in length). With her tiny little neck she would not physically be able to swallow anything bigger than that. Velvet ate her first meal on Friday since she arrived here with no problems. Here she resembles a stuffed tube sock as she stretches to fit her food down her throat.

 

Over the next year I think her growth will probably increase quite a bit.

 

She's still a little shy but overall is pretty active considering she hasn't fully gotten used to me yet.

 

The day I got her she climbed on my arm, and after awhile she went up my sleeve and curled up under my arm in my shirt.

 

If you look closely you can see that she has unusual eyes that seem to match the stripes on the sides of her face. The top part of her eyes is sort of a light blue, and then it gradually fades to brown as it goes toward the bottom. My theory about why this is, is that it could be a form of camouflage. These snakes in the wild would be more protected from predators if their eyes blended in to their surroundings as much as possible. This is why Albinos are pretty rare among wild populations of most animals. They stand out too much thus making them easy prey.

 

In captivity though, selective breeding has produced a number of Albino and other recessive hypomelanistic forms of Ball Pythons.

 

Generally Ball Pythons of breeding age and size breed just once a year, but some lay eggs and hatch them in Spring or Summer and others in Fall and Winter. It is always exciting to watch these little snakes being born.

 

If you're considering a pet snake, a Ball Python is a very good choice. Other than some minor particulars such as going off food for periods (they store nutrients so healthy snakes can live this way for a number of weeks or months without suffering malnutrition), and the need for heat in their enclosure to ensure proper digestion, these snakes are relatively low maintenence, and they are easy to tame; most having a very mild temperament.

 

Contrary to the stereotype (that they just sit there and have very little going on upstairs), Ball Pythons are quite intelligent and aware of their surroundings. They do hear you talking to them, know when you enter the room, and can track movement on the TV screen or computer monitor. If you don't believe this take a look at some videos by this woman on Youtube whose username is 1softkiss; https://www.youtube.com/user/1softkiss?feature=watch

 

Her videos act as observational studies on snake behavior and I believe have made a significant contribution to improved understanding of the capacity of these animals, not only among those who do not have snakes as pets, but within the snake/reptile community as well.

 

There is mounting documentation that snakes are not the one dimensional limited "primitive brain" animals that they were once believed to be, that they perceive alot more about the world than most give them credit for, that they can bond with their owners, and with other species, and that they are capable of showing affection!

 

Just as cats and dogs do, snakes have a "language" all their own, a form of communication that is species specific. Up until recently we humans have not generally paid as close attention to the meaning behind their behavior, as we have with other animals comminly kept as pets, and I believe this is in large part because so many are afraid of them and prefer to avoid them. With the recent legislation connected with the Lacey Act, humans are now more interested in more thoroughly understanding them, partly out of necessity, and partly out of curiosity.

 

Understanding snakes' communication is important for a number of reasons. It allows us to predict their actions, thus preventing a bite, it lets us know whether they're happy and healthy, and it allows us not merely to view them from a "cautious" distance, but to enriches their lives, and ours too through more meaningful interaction with them! 

 

The one positive outcome resulting from all the knee-jerk legislation recently covered in the media is that snakes are no longer relegated to the darkest corners of our minds, tucked away and not thought about, mired in superstition and forboding. Instead they are out in the light, and more people than ever before now want to make their peace with them, even make friends with them, and take them into their homes as a loved part of the family.

 

No longer is the paradigm of cuteness restricted to animals with fuzzy fur and warm bodies. As we become more accepting as a society towards diversity in humans, we also begin to think about parallel diplomatic relationships between ourselves and other animals with whom we share the earth.

 

I have always loved snakes and wanted one, so all this new information wasn't a stretch for me, but for many, meeting the snake face to face is a form of healing and catharsis, and on an even deeper sociological anthropological level, it is the beginning of very important work in healing that larger intergenerationally fractured relationship between man and snake, and coming out with a more reality-based interpretation of how we define that relationship in the here and now.

 

 

 

Outcome of SB 310; "Dangerous Animals and Restricted Snakes" Bill

Tuesday, May 22nd Ohio state legislators convened to decide the fate of "exotic" animals and it passed 87-9.

There were three speakers for the bill and only one speaking against.

Rep. Terry Boose (R) District 58-Norwalk (Opposed);
1) Pointed out that the bill discriminates against the poor

2) Encourages a black market

3) Not enough teeth in the bill to really be effective anyway

Rep. Brian Hill (D) District 94-Zanesville (In Favor);
1) Stated that the bill would include an "Animal Emergency Team"

2) Will promote proper caging requirements

Rep. Tracey Heard (D) District 26-Columbus (In Favor);
1) Stated that she had a pet monkey as a child and supported exempting those from the bill's scrutiny because they "make good pets, and serice animals" (side note: Opinions are like ***holes, everybody has one. So where's the research sources proving monkeys are better and safer pets than snakes???)

2) Stated that the bill "makes provisions" for those who can't afford the various fees and must "relinquish" those animals. Feels they are "reasonable". (side note: How big of her. Is she offering to adopt all these displaced pets, and cover the costs of their care? No detail given on just exactly how much these fees are, and where this money for their future care is supposed to come from. Are the people who can afford those fees supposed to foot the bill for all those people giving their pets up who can't?)

Rep. Andy hompson (R) District 93-Marietta (In Favor);
1) Stated that the "First Responders" for animal emergencies proposed by the bill is an important feature.

Well, I must say that the impression I was left with after watching this session was that the whole hearing was merely a formality.

There are so many constitutional issues here that this is bound to end up at the Supreme Court level. Perhaps animal-lovers have lost this battle, but we will win the war.

History has borne out again and again that prohibition doesn't work; not in a country that was built on acceptance of individual choices. The original settlers left Europe because they didn't want every aspect of their private lives dictated to them by their government and wanted to be free to pursue what made them happy.

Sure, there are instances when government needs to step in and intervene to level the playing field, prevent people from killing each other, or to make sure society has what it needs to serve everyone in it, there are times when that's appropriate, but not in telling people what pets they can keep.

USARK offered reasonable alternatives, and who better to be involved in the writing of standards for and about snakes than people who have been doing it for years? Who better to write the standards for large cats than people who have made a career doing that.

Society recognizes this in fields such as medicine in which boards are formed to set the standards for their peers, and in fields like medicine government hesitates to let state or Federal legislators decide what is best for doctors and their patients. The reason? Because they recognize that legislators (and along with them, other special interest groups) lack the knowledge, experience, and expertise to dictate "best practices" to doctors, tell them how they should do their surgeries, what drugs to prescribe and not prescribe, and what tests they can and can't do on their patients. (Private insurance companies try to do that, but at least the government in this instance, takes a pretty much hands-off approach).

Life is full of both risks and benefits. There are people who have died from working with animals, but in the grand scheme of things the number of people who have died does not reach the level that requires government intervention. Overall the joys of working with animals far outweighs the risks, and as we become more familiar with a whole range of different species we come to understand them better (just as different races and nationalities of people get better at relating as they are allowed to communicate and meet in the middle). All of these individual differences take time to work out.

Just like people who speak different languages, animals have their own "languages"; different ways of communicating, and different ways of interpreting the actions of species outside their own.

If people are restricted from keeping certain species they will never have the opportunity to get to know them at close range and to work through those language and cultural barriers. That in itself will keep whatever dangers there are ever-present and unpredictable. Wouldn't it be better to be able to predict and prevent those incidents and move past them than to merely table the interactions that will reduce those risks?

Just as in any relationship, humans and other animals need to meet in the middle and learn from one another so that they can successfully achieve a relationship that is mutually beneficial to both species. Money should have no place in such relationships. It is a matter to be worked out between each particular animal and each particular human.

I know that with each dog I have had the relationship and what defines it is unique. We learn along the way how to treat each other, we have special routines between us that are specific to just that relationship, certain special ways of relating that don't necessarily apply to all dogs and all humans. Relationships, whether they are human to human or human to other animal involve compromise, respect, trust, regard for the other, kindness, and most of all, the willingness to work on that relationship to make it better and richer with time. Those objectives cannot be achieved by distance. Those principles are universal and can be applied across the board, regardless of species.

What is She...Really?

It's hard to believe it's already Saturday, October, 4, 2008. Carmella has been doing her usual routine; chasing sticks in the back yard and bringing them back, then wanting to chew them up. Her jerking is about the same, definitely no worse, and she barreled over to greet the bulldog next door as it approached the fence, now curious to see Carmella a little closer.

There was a kind of surreal feeling today. I can't really tell if Carmella is gradually calming down or if it's my imagination, but she still seems to want to chew on me most every time I go near her, especially when I come into the kitchen. In the picture below you can see the bruises on my arm from her chewing on it.

I'm still wondering whether that has something to do with the virus's affect on her brain or if it is just her personality. Most puppies can be trained not to do that eventually and I used to train dogs for a dog breeder years ago, some of them pretty stubborn, and I'm not exactly an ameteur, so I wonder what gives.

This brings me back again to the question of what breeds Carmella is mixed with. She is quite unusual-looking and I keep wondering whether she really might have some wild dog-like animal in her because the chewing on people is something characteristic of wolf hybrids and other non-domestic canids. At six months of age she has all her adult teeth, so she is no longer teething. The way she does it is almost absent mindedly or reflexively, not really the type of thing younger puppies do while roughousing. Generally that kind of play is not constant and has a beginning and an end and then they'll lie down next to you and be calm and done with it. For the most part Carmella wants to do it just about anytime an appendage gets in the vicinity of her nose.

I have heard alot about Coyotes going into Cobb County and showing up in people's back yards, and I know for a fact that Coyotes are able to breed with domestic dogs. My cousin, Mike used to work in an animal behavior lab and they bred Beagles with Coyotes as one of their projects and the look was amazingly similar to Carmella with the big ears that had points veering inward and they were shorter and stockier in stature than a purebred Coyote, but leaner than a beagle and more German Shepherd-looking. They displayed the same behavior as she does when someone would go into their pen. They'd jump up with their front paws and sort of cling to the person and gnaw on them.

I also wonder whether Coyotes are more resistant to Distemper? Their DNA would be different, so they very well might be hardier in dealing with certain diseases.

Some friends of the family used to have a dog named Leader when I was a child and went to visit them at their summer house in New Hampshire that was thought to be half wolf and half Alaskan Malamute. He was a huge animal with blue eyes and an icy, vacant stare and he had many of the same behaviors as Carmella, trying to grab your leg and chew on it or jump on your head, clinging with his paws as if to challenge you in a strange type of play (although he was alot bigger than Carmella is now). I remember that training had no affect on that dog. It seemed to be so ingrained in instinct for him to do that that he was oblivious to the word "No!" and pushing him down only worked for about 2 seconds. Back then he was taller than I was when standing on his hind legs, so pushing him down was quite a chore.

Carmella's jaw is quite different. It's hard to tell in most of the pictures, but if you saw her in-person and looked at her proportions you would see what I mean. Her lower-front teeth are razor-sharp but unusually small for the size of the rest of her body, and her mouth is quite short. Also, the amount of force is what you would expect from a dog with a much longer or wider, stockier jaw.

I remember when I saw the Coyotes at the research center and the hybrid puppies the jaw was alot more like a fox than a dog. They had small, very sharp teeth and the bottom jaw was very narrow. I am dying to get Carmella DNA-tested. I wouldn't be surprised if she has some Coyote in her. She looks alot like a Dingo, but the jaw really looks more like a Coyote, and Coyotes have been sighted in Georgia, so it's a very real possibility. Carmella also has a very strange bark. It is somewhat hound-like but also somewhat husky-like but not quite either. She can only bark in a regular way a few times before it breaks up and becomes a type of howl.

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Freefalling Without a Net!

I knew something didn't feel right this morning. Last night I was up until around 5:00 AM knowing I'd have to work overtime to see that Carmella gets the help she needs. I couldn't sleep, knowing that that "thing" was eating away at her white matter each day she goes without the shot of NDV into the spinal canal. Not hearing from Dr. Norwood Friday and not hearing back yesterday had me fearing the worst.

It seemed as though the receptionists weren't rushing to have him call me back and were just nonchallantly telling me they'd "give him the message". I had the surreal feeling that I was the only one in the world who understood how urgent this was becoming. The vet's office seemed to be operating as if it were just another routine day, and something about that seemed very odd and left me with an uneasy feeling.

I told Gwen, the office manager that the e-mail address they'd given me the other day was coming back undeliverable, and read it to her off the card, and she told me that someone had put a dot where there shouldn't have been one. I changed it, and told her to please have Dr. Norwood call me because Carmella needed to get in to UGA as soon as possible now that she was worse. She reiterated that she'd "give him the message", and it felt more like a brush-off than a promise. I was not holding my breath.

Wondering if I was crazy (but for only about 30 seconds) her seeming lack of concern was incongruent with the current circumstance. No, of course I'm not crazy, I thought, snapping back to reality! This is like a nightmare... only it's real. All too real, and there's no waking up and saying, "Phew, I'm glad this isn't really happening and Carmella's here safe and sound, just a bad dream". I've read the biochemistry, seen the symptoms worsening with my own eyes, and so has Dr. Norwood. It would be all too convenient to write this off as my being an hysterical dog owner worried about nothing. That was last week's tactic, but it didn't fly then and it doesn't now in the face of even more obvious disease-progression. No, that would be the chicken's way out for the Dr. Do-Nothings of the world. Something was up surely as fish rots and leaves a tell-tale stench.

After returning from the Post Office and buying a few things at the grocery store, I just wanted to go home. I passed up most of my shopping list because I just didn't feel much like eating...ever again. Carmella's restlessness seemed to rub off on me and I just couldn't feel OK no matter what I did, like having a bee stuck inside your pants leg, unable to get it out. I think I would have enjoyed the trip out more if a friend had been there with me, but the solitude only intensified my sense of being alone with what seemed like an insurmountable problem.

The paratransit van came late to pick me up and I made a mental note that I was right to have forgone the ice cream, as a woman with blotched arms with a metal folding cart approached the driver as I boarded the vehicle and asked if she would please let her ride with her because her ice cream was melting. Her liftvan was late too, and the driver muttered something under her breath about not helping her if she was going to curse her out, not meant for her to hear. The other passenger was not cursing her out or even raising her voice, just merely saying that they needed to take it into consideration when people go to the grocery store and have no other transportation that they need to pick them up on time so food won't go to waste. It sounded like a legitimate gripe to me. The driver apologized to her and told her she couldn't, that she had to take me home and then pick up someone else right after. The woman with the folding cart was not happy when told it would be 15-20 more minutes she'd have to wait for her scheduled vehicle to get to her. I am very aware of these problems, as I belong to an organization that is trying to improve Atlanta's transit system for people with disabilities (but that story will have to wait for another day).

I returned home and let Carmella out into the back yard. She was enjoying the sun and chewing on sticks and pine cones as usual. It got pretty hot out there and as she ran around she started panting with a long tongue in proportion to her rather short snout. She looked rather comical, so I decided to go get the camera and take some more pictures. Here she is viciously attacking a weed.

As I wasn't fully satisfied with the pictures I'd taken of my last three pairs of new earrings, I took more of those too, perching them on branches and leaves, and on the pinestraw, making use of the bright sunlight.

Carmella was ready to come inside in about an hour, starting to jerk even standing on her feet, and so I took some more pictures of her in the livingroom and bedroom while she rested and got some really great perspectives. Then as I was editing a really good one, the phone rang. It was the male vet tech, Arudis, from Dr. Norwood's office. I hoped he was calling to tell me that UGA wanted Carmella to come in, but from the sound of his voice I could tell the news was not good.

"Dr. Norwood wanted me to call and tell you that UGA said they won't do it."

I felt like an hourglass with sand leaking out of a hole in the bottom. I tried my best to plug it up and keep the sand from escaping, but it seemed inevitable. "Oh no! What did they say? Why?"

"I don't know. Dr. Norwood didn't tell me. He just said they told him no. He left early but asked me to call you. He can tell you the details when he gets back tomorrow. You can call him and talk further."

"Will he be in all day?"

"Yes."

"I've been really worried about Carmella over the weekend because her jerking is still getting worse. Now what are we going to do?"

"I don't know. You'll have to talk to him about that."

I had fleeting images in my head of a dead dog in the road with cars driving by. His demeanor, like Gwen's, was a little too nonchallant. He seemed disconnected as though he felt nothing at all about the news.

No sooner had I gotten off the phone and gone back to editing the current picture of Carmella, I burst into tears. Her face seemed to stare back at me, pleading for help. I couldn't bear to look at it anymore, so I turned off Photoshop for the time being.

This horrible verdict had been handed down just as casually as if I'd been told that fries at McDonalds were a dollar forty-nine. I wondered why Dr. Norwood couldn't have called me himself.

I wrote Dr. Sears to tell him, and then decided to write Dr. Brantly. I remembered that he had said that if she'd been worse he would have done it. Well, now she is. In my e-mail I begged him to do the procedure, explained that there was only one more vet I knew of to ask and he hadn't responded. I asked what it would take for him to do this, and asked if he could arrange to get the dog-based serum from the vet he knew was using it in the body of dogs in Alabama. I told him I didn't know who else to turn to. Everyone I'd asked had said no and was just standing there while my dog got worse and worse. Carmella was in the kitchen in her bed having tremors and jerking, and again I worried that she might have a full-blown seizure.

My head was starting to hurt so I couldn't stay on the computer much longer. I must have cried for about 3 hours straight and so I took something for the headache and went to lie down hoping I'd either fall asleep or find something on TV to distract myself from the agony that had descended upon me like a heavy blanket.

I called my best friend and told her what had happened. She agreed that Dr. Brantly was worth a try since he had almost agreed to it in the beginning, and she and I brainstormed some ideas about what to do next. Tomorrow I'll call his office and see if I can get him to listen and re-evaluate the situation given Carmella's worsened condition.

Later, I took Carmella out of the kitchen to spend some time with her. I sat on the floor of the computer room to pet her and she started chewing on me again. The more I observed her behavior the more it appeared as if her reaction to being near me was an issue of overstimulation because when I tried to hold her mouth closed to keep her from poking holes in my skin and tried to hold her still, the more she struggled. Some puppies would have eventually stopped and just curled up in my lap, but she seemed to struggle almost as if her life was in danger. She really went berserk! This makes me wonder if her nerve endings are oversensitized due to demyelination. If my hand is anywhere near her, especially her face she seems to have a compulsion to gnaw on it, not aggressively, but defensively. I can hardly ever pet her anymore without her doing this. She also gets more riled up when I say, "No!" to get her to stop biting on me. She has sort of a startle reaction, not fear, but as if she can't stand the intensity of the voice or touch when I hold her away from me to keep her from chomping down or even trying to hold her on my lap. Ignoring her doesn't work so well either, or putting my hands behind my back. She'll try to pinch some flesh on my upper arm if she can't get my hands, feet, or pants leg. Bribing her with a dog treat to sit and lie down only works the first 2 times if at all when she's like this and then she takes a run at me again. I used to train dogs when I worked for a dog breeder, so most of these tactics I've mentioned work on other dogs, but so far the only thing that works (only sometimes) is to pretend to be another dog and put her on her back and pin her down by the neck briefly. This doesn't hurt the dog, but is often a last resort when nothing else will work. Sometimes I have to do this 3 times to get her to stop. Sometimes she stops completely and other times just pauses, then tries again. Wolves pin others in the pack down by the neck to establish dominance with other wolves and dogs do it during play with other dogs. The fact that this last method doesn't always keep her stopped makes me think that she might have problems with her short-term memory and possibly also impulse-control.

Sometimes the only thing I can do is put her by herself to get her to calm down. If she takes a nap she wakes up in a calmer state of mind and will come over and lick me under the chin (which is a submissive gesture), or she'll sit in my lap and allow me to snuggle her.

Earlier today she chewed two good-sized holes in my blue blanket. Luckily that one was not expensive, but I really have to watch her if I let her lie on my bed so she doesn't try to chew the thick comforter underneath.

Last night a very helpful Etsy seller suggested putting a donation widget on my blog, so I got that set up. If you can't buy jewelry but would still like to do something to help with Carmella's medical expenses there is now a way to do that on this blog through my paypal account! Go to the box to your right in the sidebar that says "Please Donate to Carmella" and click the little box where it says "Make" below. The little Paypal logo is not showing up but it should still work. I got the bill today from Care Credit and boy is it a whopper! The sooner I get that paid off the better. Your help is much appreciated. Carmella and I thank you!

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