[snake] Dorothy had a bad day.

[darxus]

http://www.chaosreigns.com/gallery/Dorothy_went_for_my_eye.jpg.html
http://www.chaosreigns.com/gallery/Zephs_first_Dorothy_bite.jpg.html
http://www.chaosreigns.com/gallery/Dorothy_pissed.jpg.html

I took Dorothy out of her cage, put her on the floor, and she was generally grumpy. She was between my arm and my head. She started creeping off, toward the opening between my hand and my head. Then scootched her tail up against my arm like she was being cuddly. It was all a ruse to get at my eye. I never actually thought it would happen, but fortunately I'm paranoid enough that I've been keeping that possibility in mind whenever she's been within her body length of my eyes. So she got my forehead.

I took the pictures in this userpic (my first animated).

I put some soft clothing over her, thinking that could calm her down.

cathijosephine got home. And picked her up without getting bit. I was surprised.

cathijosephine says Dorothy had been trying to figure out her glasses before she ended up going for her lips. Zeph was disappointed that she dropped her, but I've only managed to avoid dropping her once. That's some startling stuff. Even though, as she just asked me to mention, it doesn't hurt.

cathijosephine thinks she's still pissed off from getting a bath a couple days ago. It doesn't make sense how much she disliked that.

I decided to put her away with my bare hands as gently as possible. By this point she was loudly hissing with ever breath. It took me a while to get up the nerve. But then I did what I knew was best, without hesitation, slowly moved my hand toward her, flat back of my hand first, web of my thumb away from her, firmly grabbed her, and put her in her cage.

She was hissing the whole time. I could feel her breath on my hand. She didn't bite.

Comments

[beowabbit]

So glad your eye is OK! Hope Dorothy relaxes again soon.

[temalyen.livejournal.com]

This is why I've decided I wouldn't work well with snakes as a pet. I'd be looking to get rid of a snake after something like this.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Thassa lotta blood on that lip bite.

I think, even having been bitten by dogs and cats, a snake biting me would freak me out and I'd drop it.

The last pic clearly says, "I'm going to eat you in your sleep, human...I just haven't figured out how, yet. I will."

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

Is this typical behavior for a red-tailed boa? Are they generally this aggressive? If not, she might be grumpy 'cause she's not feeling well.

I bought my snake young, about as young as you aquired Dorothy, but Kelea never, ever showed aggression toward people; no hissing, no biting; just cuddling and liking scritches on the head.

This snakey-bitey thing is distressing!

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Yes, she is impressively good at communicating that. Makes it really difficult to pick her up, even though intellectually I know she's not capable of hurting me.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

I believe this is not typical. I knew her litter was exceptionally nippy long before I got her, which I suspect is related to their mother being wild conceived (captive born).

Zeph did drop her on the floor. Which was very close since she was sitting on it. But we have both been expecting it.

I think she and I will have a good chance of not dropping her in the future. It's just not something you can prepare yourself for without experiencing it.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

See my response to dahling, I don't believe this is typical.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

It's not actually cleaning them, it's soaking them. For the moisture. Some people do it more than once a week. Some people don't do it at all. It doesn't seem terribly important, and the one time Dorothy shed since I got her was perfect, without it. So it may never happen again.

We both knew she in particular was nippy when I ordered her. All the photos she was hissing. If that bugged us I would have gotten a different one. Probably from a captive bred mother.

Thanks.

[richspk.livejournal.com]

Is it significantly worse than a bite or scratch from a cat? I've had plenty of those over the years and still love cats.

Have you unsubscribed from The List? I haven't seen you post in quite a while.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

No, it's really basically painless, and there is nothing to heal. It just bleeds more, which is kind of surprising.

I haven't unsubscribed, I just haven't been participating. Still primarily commuting on my XX.

[plug-them-in.livejournal.com]

sorry for the pet problems but at least you are getting used to her?

what did you use to make the animated pic of dorothy? a .gif animator?

just curious.

- John M.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Gimp. All you need to do is create a multi-layer image, save as gif, and when it asks you to deal with exporting the multiple layers to a format that doesn't support it, in addition to flattening, it provides an option to do animated.