hello
i am a college student from TN. I have a 1.5 year old albino garter snake named Harley! here's a pic:
so i am having a some problems with her behavior lately and i need advice. i took her to school with me this past quarter, but finding that my roommate was terrified of snakes, i had a friend keep her in his dorm. we aren't technically allowed to have any pets besides fish in the dorm halls, and the RA's inevitably found out, and i convinced my very kind and capable boyfriend to take her home and care for her while i finished the semester. (i go to school in Georgia, he lives at home in Tennessee). i have her in a 10 gallon tank normally, but when traveling i put her in a smaller plastic cage with a snap-on lid and handles. when we were leaving the dorm hall with her my boyfriend cut the corner in the hall too fast, knocking the cage out of his hand and it broke open and she almost got away, but he slammed the bottom of the cage upside down on top of her quickly to trap her in, cutting off 2cm from the end of her tail in doing so. needless to say, my snake freaked out, but probably not as much as *I* freaked out! i was very upset...
Harley is fine now, her tail healed perfectly and she's eating and growing like a champ, but now she is extremely aggressive when anyone tries to get her out of her tank. i used to be able to just stick my hand down in there and scoop her out, but now she curls back, hisses and strikes every time. my boyfriend and i have both been bit. we made a hook out of a wire hanger (bent double so the rough part doesnt touch her) and it's easier to get her out with that, and once we have her on the hook i can put my hand out for her to move around on and she's fine being held like that, but i'm sad that she's not as easygoing as she used to be... i feed her in a separate tank and have been handling her regularly with the assistance of the hook to try to get her accustomed to being held again...
i guess after such a traumatizing experience of the tail injury and moving to new locations it's normal to have some aggressive behavior (and i suspect the boys in my friend's dorm poked the glass of her tank a lot - the whole thing was a bad decision on my part) but will she eventually improve?
thanks for reading this, i appreciate any advice
-Caresse
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