It could also be a wandering garter snake I believe they're called. But my experience with those is that they have a bad temperament. They also tend to be a lighter colour based off what I've seen, so it probably would be Northwestern garter snake. I have 3 of those myself! Great snakes.

What I do to "bond" with my snakes and get them used to me is keep my hand in their enclosure for a while and let them slither on me and learn that I'm not going to hurt them. After a while of feeding them they come to know you as a source of food and they'll trust you more. With my older snakes I let them have a warm bath every once in a while and I'll keep my hand in the drier part of the bath. They'll stop swimming around and coil up in my hands when they're done. With Runt he's skittish so I leave him alone unless I'm cleaning his tank or feeding him. I hold him sometimes too. Another thing I do with all my snakes is taking them out individually and letting them slither on my bed while I'm laying down. They seem to enjoy it a lot since they can hide in my blankets and explore. Mama normally stays around me while Snakey and Runt like to explore in my blankets.

Tail sexing works by looking at their tails past the cloaca (where they go poop pretty much). Males have longer tails and they don't taper immediately after the cloaca. Females have shorter tails and it tapers after the cloaca. I'm not sure how to do the link thing but here's a good topic that explains how to sex snakes visually.

http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/bree...xing-pics.html