Owner awareness?

[Marshallarts]

Today my mom was holding Marshall, and he reached out for me and held onto my hand until I walked away. He will let me touch his head but not anyone else. Has anyone else experienced this?

[Derek1]

I know snakes don't love us per the debate not long ago. But my Cal King knows me and my 5yr old. She knows who it is and is calm and cool. With others she is jumpy/flighty. Never strikes or bites, but she knows. With the cold weather I wear my college hoodie a lot and she likes to hang out in the front belly pocket, but I only handle her once/twice a week.

[Minkness]

I think it's a kind to recognition and trust than 'love' per say. Reptiles have more intelligence than I think most give them credit for.

Like I have had fish that greet me at the front of their tank, and geckos that chill with me, ect. But not all of them do XD

[Marshallarts]

Yes I wouldn't call it love, but trust. And I find they like to interact.

[Minkness]

Yes, some deff like to interact! Lol

[millertime89]

I don't know if it's a trust thing so much as we're a familiar object, akin to having a preferred hiding spot. I think it's a comfort thing. They like to retreat to something that they know when feeling stressed. You have to really break it down to the most basic of instincts with these animals.

[Aaron_S]

Originally Posted by Marshallarts

Today my mom was holding Marshall, and he reached out for me and held onto my hand until I walked away. He will let me touch his head but not anyone else. Has anyone else experienced this?

Yes. If someone is holding a snake and I put my hand near it's tail it will instinctively grab ahold of it for proper support. Your mom most likely wasn't doing this.

Snakes live on the ground (well most do) and even though some enjoy climbing when they do they very much make sure they are "grounded" in some form or fashion. Most ways are to wrap the tail or a part of their body around a "tree limb" so if they fall they will catch themselves.

Has nothing to do with awareness of an owner.

[Jrich]

Could it be how warm or cold someone's hands are? I know it's strange but I try to warm up my hands as much as possible before I get one of my snakes out because they seem to hang around longer/not move as much rather than try to get away/explore. I could just be silly.

[Marshallarts]

Interesting you say it's not owner awareness at all, because Im not the only one to say this. I've heard of other people's snakes doing similar things, like if hey put the snake on their friend it will slither across the couch to its owner. Not a heat thing, my moms hands were a lot warmer than mine. Comfort is a good point. That would make sense.

[Aaron_S]

Originally Posted by Marshallarts

Interesting you say it's not owner awareness at all, because Im not the only one to say this. I've heard of other people's snakes doing similar things, like if hey put the snake on their friend it will slither across the couch to its owner. Not a heat thing, my moms hands were a lot warmer than mine. Comfort is a good point. That would make sense.

The snake is just being curious and those people are interpreting it as "the snake is showing affection". It's called anthropormorphizing. It's wrong. HOWEVER, aslong as the snakes are well cared for I could careless if someone thought rainbows shot out of it's butt and it smiled and purred when they entered the room.

[MDT]

Originally Posted by Marshallarts

Interesting you say it's not owner awareness at all, because Im not the only one to say this. I've heard of other people's snakes doing similar things, like if hey put the snake on their friend it will slither across the couch to its owner. Not a heat thing, my moms hands were a lot warmer than mine. Comfort is a good point. That would make sense.

A lot of people used to say the earth was flat, too....still didn't make them right

[jjhill001]

This may sound crazy but there is such a thing as being bad at handling reptiles. This would explain the head thing. Chances are to go towards its head you are slow yet deliberate. Whereas most peoplw who handle reptiles are herkyjerky and shake around like nimrods. Slow and deliberate doesn't scare as much as fast jerky movements. Also reaching out to you mostly involves the way that handling colubrids usually goes. They get to the end (your moms hands in this case.) If she stops moving her hands to create more crawling room the snake will "reach out" looking for some other stuff, which in a situation where its just you and your mom standing there is going to be you.

There are a few things that I've noticed that will cause some things like this, some snakes will shy from smokers and people wearing lots of cologne. But then again, most people do that with the second one anyways so they aren't really alone.

People say reptiles don't love like its a bad thing, no animal we regularly keep as pets loves. A cat looks at you like a subordinate and a dog looks at you as its master or in the case of small childeren as a something to be herded. A dog doesn't listen because it loves you.

[Kuamata]

Originally Posted by jjhill001

People say reptiles don't love like its a bad thing, no animal we regularly keep as pets loves. A cat looks at you like a subordinate and a dog looks at you as its master or in the case of small childeren as a something to be herded. A dog doesn't listen because it loves you.

I'm sorry, but am I the only one bothered by this statement? There has not been a day in my life that I have lived without a cat or dog. I've experienced enough of my own personal experiences, and heard and seen others' experiences, to say they feel emotions like affection and not just raw instinct like reptiles. There are countless stories online, videos, etc. One of the most trending these days is the dog weeping at the grave of its deceased owner, or dogs taking trips, of their own accord, to see the grave of their deceased owner and remaining at that tombstone.

Even my parrots feel emotion like grief, love, etc. Heck, one of them wants to be my mate and I keep shooting him down. Parrots, in my mind, are the closest non-human animals that you could possibly get to having children. I had a pet African Goose named Matilda. While we were raising her, we would say 'Matilda' or 'What what' when addressing her. She eventually honked back two or three times whenever we did that. Well, my bonded macaw boys picked this up from watching me talk to her, and began talking with her by saying 'What what' like we did. Naturally, she would talk back. Now... I normally deal with death by going into denial and shutting it out if my mind... when Matilda died, I was not able to do that. Why? Because my boys were so stricken with grief. When she stopped responding, they knew something wasn't right. They began wailing,"What what? What what?! WHAT WHAAT?! WHAT WHAAaaat..." It was so heart wrenching, to hear them grieve like that, and knowing I couldn't really communicate with them like I would another person to console them. The best I could offer was my presence, which only mildly helped. This went on for about two weeks of them wailing and mourning before things steadily went back to normal...

At any rate, I agree with Aaron. Your snake was looking for some support.

[jjhill001]

Originally Posted by Kuamata

I'm sorry, but am I the only one bothered by this statement? There has not been a day in my life that I have lived without a cat or dog. I've experienced enough of my own personal experiences, and heard and seen others' experiences, to say they feel emotions like affection and not just raw instinct like reptiles. There are countless stories online, videos, etc. One of the most trending these days is the dog weeping at the grave of its deceased owner, or dogs taking trips, of their own accord, to see the grave of their deceased owner and remaining at that tombstone.

Even my parrots feel emotion like grief, love, etc. Heck, one of them wants to be my mate and I keep shooting him down. Parrots, in my mind, are the closest non-human animals that you could possibly get to having children. I had a pet African Goose named Matilda. While we were raising her, we would say 'Matilda' or 'What what' when addressing her. She eventually honked back two or three times whenever we did that. Well, my bonded macaw boys picked this up from watching me talk to her, and began talking with her by saying 'What what' like we did. Naturally, she would talk back. Now... I normally deal with death by going into denial and shutting it out if my mind... when Matilda died, I was not able to do that. Why? Because my boys were so stricken with grief. When she stopped responding, they knew something wasn't right. They began wailing,"What what? What what?! WHAT WHAAT?! WHAT WHAAaaat..." It was so heart wrenching, to hear them grieve like that, and knowing I couldn't really communicate with them like I would another person to console them. The best I could offer was my presence, which only mildly helped. This went on for about two weeks of them wailing and mourning before things steadily went back to normal...

At any rate, I agree with Aaron. Your snake was looking for some support.

Well the dog crying at the veteran's grave (the version of this BS Facebook story I saw) is not true because dogs can't cry. Liquid will only come out of a dog eye if its infected or something is in it.

I'll admit to not knowing much about parrots, that's why I said most animals we keep as pets and not all. But couldn't they just be reacting to a change (stressor) in way. I know they do live a long time so I imagine they were kept with one another for a long time and a missing compadre could be a major stressor causing the reaction.

Its much easier to avoid anthropomorphizing (spelling? Autocorrect won't save me here) an animal like a snake because they don't make noise or have eyebrows than it is to avoid it with something that has so much more personality in general like a dog or cat or bird or whatever. I love my pets and I anthromorphize them by naming them and everything. My cat reacts when he gets yelled at by coming to comfort me which is really just a reaction to get me to let him do whatever he wants, which works most of the time. But he's only doing that to get what he wants. Not because he's sad he made me upset.

Like another poster here though it is all semantics because in the end with regards to husbandry it really doesn't matter if something loves you or not as long as you care for it properly.

[Mikoh4792]

I would not say it's owner awareness. I would say it's usually you who holds the snake, so it's gotten used to "your way" of handling. I'm guessing the experience of being handled by other people feels alien to them.

I however, have not had such experiences with my snakes. They do fine whether being held by me or anyone else. Though I own semi-arboreal pythons so that might be a factor since they need less "support" than ball pythons and such.