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Do you own dogs? I do. I do despite the fact that I know dogs injury and kill people including infants and children every year. People have had to kill dogs, sometimes their own dogs, to get them off of children as well. Owning animals particularly in a home with children is a risk many of us take because we believe we get enough out of that ownership to make hat risk worthwhile but snakes are not some unique subset of animals that they are the only one with risk, in fact even if you control for the fact that there are far more dogs, owners of dogs are much more likely to need medical care for an injury caused by their pet than snake owners are.
Of course.
I was specifically addressing Big Cats fairly flippant "the parents could easily kill the snake" comment.
As if it were no big deal.
I was specifically addressing Big Cats fairly flippant "the parents could easily kill the snake" comment.
As if it were no big deal.
I said earlier in the thread, while I don't know if the parents knew about this, there IS something they could do instantly to easily save their kid if the snake got all attackey. Just pour any sort of strong alcohol over its face. A snake, any snake, will instantly release and try to escape if you do this. I've been good friends with enough reptile enthusiasts to know things I may never need to know...and I have no idea if this child's parent or the snake's owner (whether they're even the same person or not) knows. But they ought to.
Also, at the Iowa State Fair some years back, they had a thing called "Snakes Alive!" where people, children, whoever, could get in a little wooden photo booth bench and a handler would place a large albino constrictor...believe it was a Burmese python...around the fairgoer's shoulders for a photo. It was easily big enough to kill small kids, but small kids were allowed to go in and get pictures with it. I'm thinking if this was such a huge problem of "OMG a snake could kill a kid in SECONDS, and there would be NOTHING ANYONE COULD DO!" then they would not have been doing that. Liability and all.
I said earlier in the thread, while I don't know if the parents knew about this, there IS something they could do instantly to easily save their kid if the snake got all attackey. Just pour any sort of strong alcohol over its face. A snake, any snake, will instantly release and try to escape if you do this. I've been good friends with enough reptile enthusiasts to know things I may never need to know...and I have no idea if this child's parent or the snake's owner (whether they're even the same person or not) knows. But they ought to.
Also, at the Iowa State Fair some years back, they had a thing called "Snakes Alive!" where people, children, whoever, could get in a little wooden photo booth bench and a handler would place a large albino constrictor...believe it was a Burmese python...around the fairgoer's shoulders for a photo. It was easily big enough to kill small kids, but small kids were allowed to go in and get pictures with it. I'm thinking if this was such a huge problem of "OMG a snake could kill a kid in SECONDS, and there would be NOTHING ANYONE COULD DO!" then they would not have been doing that. Liability and all.
As much as many would like us to believe; we do not communicate with animals. We might think we do until the chimpanzee rips the face off her trainer's friend. Sometimes we can read aggressive behavior and sometimes we cannot. I would almost bet that the parents of that little girl did not have a bottle of alcohol ready to throw on the face of the python. Don't forget that the little girl's head could easily have been it it's mouth and I do not think she would want a face full of alcohol even if she was being saved. Isopropyl alcohol can damage your eyes. Those teeth are designed to hold their prey; not to release it.
We have a lot of deer and turkeys around our house. Normally they get along fairly good with each other or at least they leave each other alone. One time my wife and I were watching them outback. One large doe walked up to a big Tom turkey and kicked it like a football! We did not see that coming and the turkey did not either. Another time we watched as a large Tom bird walked up to a doe and then spurred it in the side - we did not see that coming either.
All I am saying is that was stupid to 'trust' a large snake with their daughter - it should be criminal. If any thing happens to their daughter I am sure that video would make great court evidence. The reason we call them animals is because they are not human!
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I'm a big animal lover, and actually, I think we do "communicate" with mammals.
I would be concerned with this constrictor wrapped around this child watching TV. She is far too big for the snake to eat - you can tell the jaw spread when he yawns, and there is absolutely no way this child would fit through those jaws, but I believe it might still try to suffocate her.
And once that happens it happens in a flash. The snake wraps around, and good luck finding a big enough knife to sever the snake's midsection and release the child. That's minutes, which you don't have when the child's lungs are restricted.
A dog is a COMPLETELY different thing than a snake. Dogs have social structures and groups and warning behaviors and social signals. Snakes are reptiles with no social group behavior whatsoever.
Well despite the alcohol trick and my shrug and "meh whatever" because I'm just not especially horrified of snakes in general... I think there are many, MANY people out there who get animals that they aren't prepared to properly deal with, care for, or commit to.
That goes for people who get snakes that will grow to huge proportions and require a room to live in and rabbits to eat...are you ready for that? If not, get you a lil ball python and call it a day, man. And monitors that get big, and exotic species of all sorts of animals that either can become dangerous, and/or have very particular needs. I just don't think it's a great idea.
But right up there are dogs. Not because of the dogs, because of the owners. People who don't understand the nature or needs of the breed they get, or people who aren't prepared to fully train a dog and tend to its needs, wind up with animals that are badly socialized, and/or wind up in shelters...and yes, sometimes attacking people and doing serious harm.
And frankly, much as everybody loves dogs and all, I think that deserves more attention than the OMG big snake thing. A tiny percentage of people will keep a large snake as a pet, a small percentage of those have small children, and some small percentage of those might do something possibly careless, and out of those incidents, a minuscule number might possibly end in tragedy.
There is no comparison to the number of people who get dogs, fail to properly care for or train them, and wind up with the dog maiming or killing a kid, or badly biting someone or something. THAT happens ALL THE TIME. Even if you try to make it fair given the disproportionate number of dog-pets to snake-pets, if you looked at what percentage of one and the other caused serious injury to a human during their ownership as pet animals...I'm betting dogs are, in general, more dangerous statistically.
So if you get an animal, don't be stupid about it. This was probably stupid. This is one of many ways in which people aren't thinking right (probably, at least) about the creature they have and what it's capable of. But it's no more egregious than the hundred other ways in which people are irresponsible pet owners, to the danger of their kids, and others, not to mention the pet itself.
The parents should be held accountable for this. Far too many people make the mistake of taking pets for granted. There was an incident in Canada a few years back where a couple dropped off their kids at a friend's place who was a snake wrangler. The kids stayed overnight and somehow some snakes escaped and strangled them in their sleep.
This reminds me of a story I heard about. A woman with a pet snake kept noticing that her snake had stopped eating. She became concerned and took it to a vet. The vet told her that the snake had been preparing its stomach for a large meal - her.
But dogs are predators, the same way snakes are. The dog in the video could have "snapped" and killed that child before her mother could have put down the camera. But that is highly unlikely. Animals rarely "snap" and that dog was displaying very calm body language, showing no signs of stress (no whale eye or licking of air) and the child was likely "safe".
The same can be said of snakes, they are also predatory animals but rarely snap. That snake was not showing any signs of stress (no tight coils on body or strike position of neck) and as it turns out that little girl was safe.
Dogs are domesticated animals and considerably more intelligent and sociable than snakes. I truly hope you are just trolling and aren't actually this ignorant.
Dogs are domesticated animals and considerably more intelligent and sociable than snakes. I truly hope you are just trolling and aren't actually this ignorant.
The Mastiff, in the picture that you were responding to, is one of the breeds that insurance companies treat as 'aggressive' breeds. The companies could charge more or deny home owner's insurance.
All dogs are not safe: 2017 U.S. Dog Bite Fatalities - Dog Bite Statistics - DogsBite.org. Just like not all humans are 'safe', sometimes our pets will bite the hand that feeds them. My feeling is that many times pet owners will post pictures to 'prove' their point that their animals are harmless. But, when they place their young close to animals that could possibly kill their children; those pictures (like the one the OP posted) could be used in a court of law if the child would be killed or injured. If the owners were not insured for exotic animals, like their snake, all medical cost or damages might not be covered.
Regardless how 'smart' the animal is or the owner; they cannot communicate how they feel. Yes; dogs can bark and wag their tail for food or to go outside. Sometimes we can even 'read their minds' about medical conditions; but not all the time - we do not 'speak' their language. Like humans; sometimes they want more of whatever we give them: Not enough petting, more time outside, or more food and we feel they have had enough. Or they could have a tender area that we are not aware of until we pet or touch. Then there are other times that we hurt our pets by accident - like rocking in a chair and not knowing our animals tail was under the rocker. Different pets react differently when they are hurt, ill, tired, or as they grow old.
Our insurance companies recognize that all breeds are not the same: https://www.zillow.com/blog/exotic-p...urance-172287/. I have to wonder how an insurance company would view the OP's picture if they found out the home owner had that snake - even if they had the 'extra' insurance? I have presumed that the OP did not take that picture and just copied and pasted here for our comments. I was waiting for further comments from the OP.
This reminds me of a story I heard about. A woman with a pet snake kept noticing that her snake had stopped eating. She became concerned and took it to a vet. The vet told her that the snake had been preparing its stomach for a large meal - her.
I call urban legend. ^
Even anacondas almost never go after humans, and then not full grown adult humans. Unless that woman was extremely tiny, I'm not buying it, even with a huge snake.
Also, with regard to your other comment about dogs: Yes, they are intelligent and sociable. But how many fools get dogs with a capacity to be dangerous and either train them to be mean or fight, or tie them outside or stick 'em in a yard and neglect them, or simply have no idea how to deal with them? I know someone who watched two pit bulls go nuts and rip a woman's arm off. This is not something I read about in some story or clickbait article, I personally know a woman who was helpless to intervene, on the other side of a storm door, while this was actually happening to her neighbor in front of her eyes. The neighbor thought those dogs were sweet and innocent and wouldn't hurt a fly, until they almost killed her. She later said she thought some random sound from outside "set them off."
Dogs also have issues mentally and physically from inbreeding sometimes, because we've interfered with their evolution so severely. It is hard to look at a Dachshund and a Saint Bernard and think of them as the same sort of animal, even. And I remember lots of stories when 101 Dalmatians movie came out, of families getting Dalmatian pups for their kids, not realizing this breed is not really known to be easygoing around kids, and can be aggressive. When I was a kid, I went to throw a ball for a neighbor's dog one day, and he lunged at me and bit me in the face because I was trying to take his ball. We'd played fetch 100 times before. Fortunately, though I was bloodied up, I wasn't permanently damaged.
So if you think that dogs aren't dangerous or hazardous because they are sociable and intelligent, you're delusional or something. As you say..."I hope you're trolling."
....... I have presumed that the OP did not take that picture and just copied and pasted here for our comments. I was waiting for further comments from the OP.
Don't wait. The OP searches and finds things online that may be considered newsworthy, controversial, informative or enlightening as human interest stories and then he posts them on forums. CD forum isn't the only forum the OP posts human interest stories to (I've seen his news posts under the same user name on a few other forums), and he offers very little personal commentary and rarely if ever returns to respond to a thread once he's posted it. Some of the things the OP posts online really are exceptionally interesting and eye-opening.
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