People come up and ask me, “Why reptiles?” My favorite quick answer to give is, “They’re quiet, and they eat and poop once a week!” And, sometimes I’ll tell them about how I was allergic to literally everything else and wanted to take a chance at something new.
But while there’s an easy answer, I think expressing what exactly I love about reptiles and why we go on keeping them is a little harder to describe.
Stress Relief
I stay pretty busy during the day and stress is a close companion of mine. While owning a lot of reptiles at once can cause stress, the structure of keeping up with them on a schedule and having something not-school to do when I get home actually helps keep me together. It’s kind of like making the bed every morning. If you look around and the house is a disaster but the bed is made and the reptiles are doing OK, then things aren’t that bad.
This pales in comparison to the kind of stress relief the reptiles themselves bring. I’ll tell you what, Tinder has to be the most boring ball python when he’s in his cage. He doesn’t wander at night. He almost never even sticks his head out waiting for food like my other balls (the food just sort of just disappears like it was hit by a magnificent bus). But if I’ve had a bad day and I pull him out, I hold him in my arms and I just feel better. Not only that, but I feel he behaves differently on these days. Normally he’ll sit for a while in his ball and then he wants down. He wants to explore the couch, the floor, the desk. But on my bad days, he doesn’t try and go anywhere. He just sits, like he’s waiting for me to feel better before he gets on with his day.
Felix is my favorite “anytime” ball python. He just seems to genuinely enjoy being part of whatever it is that I’m doing. Walking outside? Great, I’ll sightsee. Washing dishes? That’s cool, you missed a spot. Making the bed. Sweeping the floor. He hangs out on my shoulders like he’s got nowhere else to be—and he, of course, likes trying to be involved in all of it.
Fun
If laughter is the best medicine, then our monitor lizard Falafel is a gold-star pharmacy. He’s like a little kid, and watching his antics is a constant source of fun. He learned to climb up our pantry shelves onto the bread. He had to see what was inside the refrigerator when we opened the door. He’s learning what “no” means, and he’s constantly pushing his boundaries. Not to say that this isn’t a little stressful sometimes (haha) but the good definitely outweighs the bad.
Watching the reptiles explore our world is a tremendous source of fun for me. Did you think that was a chair? No. It is a jungle gym. It’s for weaving in and out of, hanging upside down from, and streeeeeetching to the floor until your butt lands with a thump. Normal household objects become fun. Stuffed animals are fun, and another good thing to climb on. And walking around outside is fun. In the summer, our green tree pythons love going outside for walks. They chill on our shoulders while we do all the work, and they stretch up to look at the trees or stretch out to look at the grass. We’ve used it as a source of relief for them after one has to get medication or comes out of a nasty shed. They love it.
Learning
I guess the most learning you can do is from a point where you know next to nothing, when you’re first starting out and everything seems like a giant revelation. That said, I know a lot more now and I’m still learning all the time. About the snakes, their individual personalities, what they are capable of, and all about their biology. I am always learning.
Some of this isn’t always a happy process. I had to learn that snakes, like dogs and cats, can get parasites. Unlike dogs and cats (or maybe just like them?), many shopkeepers aren’t forthcoming with this information and don’t bother to tell you to get them dewormed or checked out. This is one of the frustrating, unique and cool things about reptiles.
They aren’t commonly understood, so everything you learn feels new and mind-shattering. There’s the fact that they have a three-chambered heart. Don’t care? Well, you might when you find out your snake has an enlarged heart! What is that soft, squishy lump on your snake? Is that a fat deposit? Or a tumor?
Before we kept snakes, I had no idea that they could be curious or stubborn or have individual personalities. I didn’t know that they recognized or remembered people. Our green tree python Pandora almost died when she came to us, and she had to make a few trips to the vet. The first time she was really too weak to care or do anything, but the second time she fought like a banshee and had to be toweled for her exam (she was feeling better!). The trip after that, we took her to the vet and had to wait for a while, so we took her out to explore the room. A couple of techs came in to take pictures of her and say hello to her. She was doing well and responded positively to them. Then the vet stopped in and talked to us from the doorway. Pandora FLIPPED OUT. She musked all over the floor and tried to haul butt away. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she remembered him.
Why not?
Reptiles are fun, interesting, and surprising. I think if more people understood them, they would be more popular pets. I don’t regret anything about owning them and having them in our lives.
