There is nothing worse than someone telling you you don't love your animals.
I am renting out a room in my house to a couple that love animals very much. They keep many pet rats, in fact, and due to the smell the rats produce I have told them they need to be out by August. I leased to them to help them out, they have nowhere else to go.
I believe I take good care of my snakes. I take them to the vet when something is off, I make sure they have the temperature gradients they need, I make sure they are shedding okay and maintaining a good weight.
But, the thing is, I am a minimalist when it comes to snake-keeping. I only keep the essentials in my snake enclosures. That is, the temperature and humidity equipment, hides, a water dish, and a substrate. I figure that snakes have the cognitive function of basically just a brain stem, and they don't know the difference between a milk carton and a pet store-purchased hide.
Yet because I don't furnish lots of fake plant decorations and the like, quite often I get accused of being a negligent keeper. The people I am renting the spare room out to basically tell me I don't care about my animals. The people admit that while I give my animals what they need, they keep saying that I don't give my snakes any mental stimulation.
They are mainly referring to my corn snakes, which I breed. The complaints are as follows: I use heat pads, not heat lamps. I use paper towel as a substrate, not aspen or anything. I feed f/t, not live. I use washed-out cartons and boxes as hides (I figure it's more sanitary to dispose of them and replace them than to wash a pet store hide over and over). And there are no fake plants or knicknacks in the enclosures.
My animals are healthy. And when they aren't healthy, they are taken to the vet (I recently dropped $200 in vet bills on a $30 corn snake without a second thought). I take good care of my animals.
I know they don't know better, they think because they have a single leopard gecko that they are experts in reptile care. But it still hurts when someone says something like that to you.
I don't know...I just figured I'd run this by you guys. I'm trying not to let any of this get to me, but its hard when you hear it over and over every time you sit down to dinner. I figure if anyone would listen to what I'm going through, I'd be the people on this forum. I could really use a hug right now. I'm recently out of a relationship and I live miles away from family, so a few kind words from people on this forum would go a long way
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