I started doing this post as a reply when I realized this would be perfect for introducing myself. Hi my name is Dannie and I currently reside in a smaller town near Pendleton Oregon. Its pretty dry here and so i've not seen any garter snakes until someone brought me a melanistic or hypermelanistic garter. I posted some pictures on the forum if anyone is curious. There are about 8 pictures in my album link.

When i was younger I lived in Philadelphia. I used to catch Garter snakes and Northern Brown aka DeKay snakes. We were allowed to keep them for a week and then let them go. I'm surprised the snakes could move when they left since they had no trouble eating all the worms we caught. When I was a little older I bought some ribbon snakes. Those were really awesome snakes. Whip thin but very nice personalities. And very eager to go fishing while you watched. One of the favorite snakes I had was named Jade. Very mean green garter snake, very large. I took him to school where we had him set up for everyone to see. That S.O.B would chase me around the 55 gallon aquarium when I was cleaning his cage. He was threatening the people whose steps he lived in which is why I ended up with him. After a few months of incarceration for his crimes...<aka being the class pet> He got released at the Tinicum wildlife refuge where he can chase down all the people he wanted...or hopefully be the nice reformed snake and live a peaceful life eating slimy things.

I currently work at a Petstore and enjoy my job immensely. Though I am often oncall for various questions and identifications. My current garter snake was found in an apartment complex. Apparently he was nearly killed by the finder. I thanked him immensely for not killing it and also told him to bring any other 'finds' to me if they end up in his apartment or to just shoo the poor guys outside.

I used to raise cornsnakes. At one point I had over 100 during hatching season. Life took a tailspin and so I'm down to just two. One of my hypomelanistic girls gave me some eggs to watch. I'm hoping for hypo lavender babies. My favorite snakes are spotted pythons. Very sweet snakes. I've also had various kingsnakes, rubber boas, sand boas, a rather stupid ball python <He choked himself while constricting a mouse. Knocked himself unconscious and once he loosened up, came to and finished eating the mouse. He refused to eat rats! I gave him away to someone who was willing to deal with him> and a fox snake. At one point I had a California lyre snake but he refused to eat pinkies for me and I was not going to deal with lizards. So I returned him to the store.

I've also had bearded dragons, leopard geckos, long tailed grass lizards, Bahama anoles, golden geckos and tokays. No lizards currently reside with me but I am eyeing some crested geckos. Nice personalities on them.

As for my household it includes 10 cats, 5 which are Laperm cats <curly haired>. Two dogs, Spaz the chinese crested and Ditzy the poodle chihuhua, Zipper the quaker parrot, 2 cornakes and 12 pet rats.