Cuddles!

[ConcinusMan]

Why is there even any doubt? If you're holding the snake and you turn and move around, a reflection will move.

[guidofatherof5]

You guys are in the best position to judge this situation. First hand eye to eye is the best place to make the call. We are stating opinion on the photographic evidence. I hope it turns out to be nothing but a reflection.

[acovert]

The doubt comes from what we saw when looking at the snake, even when our hands weren't near his face. In the pictures it definitely looks like a reflection, but it was only happening with the one eye and not the other. It also looked different while we were watching him move around on the bed. But I don't think there's anything wrong with the eye itself. I think its just some anomaly being caused by something like light or a reflection. Or its just the coloration of his eye that's confusing us. He's so small, and that makes it that much harder to figure out what's going on.

We'll simply continue to keep an eye on it. At this point it doesn't appear to be anhthing serious. Cuddles isn't bothered by that eye. His vision seems fine. He reacts to movement. He doesn't act like it's irritating him, as if there were a piece of shed stuck there. He seems completely healthy.

[chris-uk]

Relax. In the photos all I saw was reflections. It may affect one eye more than the other for a variety of reasons - the way you hold him facing different ways, the pigmentation of the eyes could be different, the surface of one eyecap could be more reflective than the other... Just a few optical explanations for starters.
Do keep an eye on Cuddles' eyes, but don't worry too much.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

That is a reflection of your finger. If it isn't, I will eat my socks.

[guidofatherof5]

That is a reflection of your finger. If it isn't, I will eat my socks.

[acovert]

I just took Cuddles out to visit with him before bed. He's been quite the active snake this last week, traveling all over his tank. He even came really close to going into his water dish, which was surprising. It's so funny to watch him poke his head out of the aspen and just sit there for hours. Every time I walk by he flinches and then quickly withdraws back into the substrate.

I took a look at his eye again. I am beginning to think that what I am seeing is a coloration difference in his eye that has a tendency to reflect a lot differently than plain old black, and that's why it keeps looking like something is there. When I get really close it just looks like a reddish tint to the black of the eye. So I don't think it's anything serious, as you guys have said. My boyfriend can insist all he wants. The most I will do is check it from time to time. I don't need to worry about it

I took him out tonight because I noticed him out of his substrate and moving around. When he saw me he froze and didn't move. It was like he was thinking, "Crap, she saw me. Maybe if I don't move she'll just go away." I took the chance and pulled him out without a fight. It's the first time he hasn't musked me in a while (the last few times I've taken him out he was grumpy because he was either shedding or I was taking a close look at his eye). Now he's perfectly content crawling around my legs as I type. The cat sniffed at him for a moment, then went about his own business, so I'm glad that I don't have to worry about having Cuddles out when the cat is around. Romeo doesn't seem to care about any of my pets. He just expects to be treated as king of the house and nothing more.

I'll see if I can get some pictures of Cuddles up this weekend. It's a bit of a hassle since I have to switch my mom's memory card into my camera and then take a picture without seeing what I'm taking a picture of. The screen on the digital camera is broken and my mom's digital camera is a piece of junk. So I just guess and check when I take pictures. A lot of them turn out bad, but I like how detailed and clear the pictures are on that camera compared to my mom's or my phone's. It really brings out the pretty red in Cuddles' scales

[chris-uk]

Nice update. Cuddles sounds like quite the personality.

Word of warning - don't get complacent around the cat. He has his instincts too and they aren't compatible with sharing space with a snake. Our Mortimer is lazy and slow most of the time but I know he'd move quickly if I ever dropped a snake in front of him. He's the reason we knew our parietalis had escaped last year, fortunately I was nearby and no lasting damage was done. I don't have Mortimer in the room when I'm handling the smaller snakes.

[guidofatherof5]

Nice update. Cuddles sounds like quite the personality.

Word of warning - don't get complacent around the cat. He has his instincts too and they aren't compatible with sharing space with a snake. Our Mortimer is lazy and slow most of the time but I know he'd move quickly if I ever dropped a snake in front of him. He's the reason we knew our parietalis had escaped last year, fortunately I was nearby and no lasting damage was done. I don't have Mortimer in the room when I'm handling the smaller snakes.

Very good advice on the cat situation Chris.

[acovert]

Definitely good advice on the cat. There are times when the cat can't leave my room so I'll just have to keep a close eye on him. He doesn't seem to care, but he is a brat.
I'm almost glad he's a bad hunter. There was a mouse running around in my room once and he just looked at it stupidly before he realized what it was and then finally made an attempt to catch it. Not that I wanted him to catch it. The mouse had been poisoned, so it was slow and disoriented. My boyfriend and I caught it and caged it until it died. Romeo didn't show even an ounce of interest after we caught it, and it was alive in my room all night. It's so hard to tell what the stupid cat will do sometimes.

I won't get complacent. I'm just glad the cat doesn't go into attack mode whenever he sees the snake. It makes it possible for me to hold Cuddles when he is nearby, at the very least, since I can't just kick the cat out of my room.