Greg, very cool project you did there. Thanks for sharing!!

Being so new to garters, I don't have much practical experience but here's my little thoughts...

Like Sid said, I never wanted snakes as lap dogs. (Lap dogs, I have loads of!) So my initial thoughts were that the snakes would provide me with something beautiful and interesting to watch, and allow me the pleasure of providing for them the best care I could, but without being "needy". And so I never did handle them much, and I still don't; I prefer to be the caregiver-from-afar and leave them to live their own lives.

However.

Having lately to handle Miriam and Mordecai more, it's been dawning on me that I may not have done them justice. They have never gotten over their fear reaction to me... and now I'm starting to think that hadnling them a lot more may have stressed them initially, but as they slowly got used to me as a part of their environment, they overall would have been more relaxed and content.

Does that make sense? I wouldn't expect them to recognise me as a "friend", but at least to not panic when I reach for them. And as we do have to handle the snakes from time to time, it seems to me now that having them precieve us as an unthreatening moving branch, lol, would actually be kinder in the long run.

It's like with the horses... in order to raise a "bomb proof", sane, well adjusted foal, you have to scare them with big bad things (tarps, umbrellas, plastic bags, etc) until they are used to them and no longer startle. But it is hard to know you're scaring your baby and stressing her, just to make her life easier in the long run.