Steve's Snake Observations

[kibakiba]

Indeed. My therapist is the only person I know in real life who understands that and believes me. She's known me for 2 years and has been through a lot of me discussing my snakes.

Its funny how some people who have raised them don't ever see how intelligent they can be.

[ConcinusMan]

They are obviously good for you. Any therapist worth a darn will be able to see that. Heck, I can.

[Sonya610]

We don't need to be able to communicate with them, either. It can be tested. We can find out which part of the brain does what job and we can find out whether a species has it and whether it's working on a specific individual.

The testing is only as good as the testers, and we are pretty darn dense to say the least!

The poor development in birds of any brain structures clearly corresponding to the cerebral cortex of mammals led to the assumption among neurologists not only that birds are primarily creatures of instinct, but also that they are very little endowed with the ability to learn...This misconceived view of brain mechanisms hindered the development of experimental studies on bird learning .

EVOLUTION: ON THE EVOLUTION OF BIRD INTELLIGENCE

We now know that birds have a different brain structure but some are in fact HIGHLY intelligent and capable of problem solving.

How is it they were "stupid and instinctual animals" a few decades ago but are now considered to be far more intelligent? Who got smarter? Us or them?

Course it is always very convenient for humans to decide "this or that doesn't have feelings, it is not self-aware" because therefore you can do whatever you like to them! And in my mind it does come down to self-aware, on a spiritual level as well as a physical level.

[Stefan-A]

The testing is only as good as the testers, and we are pretty darn dense to say the least!

We're smart enough to test their intelligence and we're smart enough to take ourselves out of the equation.

How is it they were "stupid and instinctual animals" a few decades ago but are now considered to be far more intelligent? Who got smarter? Us or them?

Who thought that? Certainly not those who were studying them.

We've also been believing that animals are far more intelligent than they actually are since we were hunter-gatherers and it's only fairly recently that we've been able to lay those myths to rest by actually putting them through tests.

Course it is always very convenient for humans to decide "this or that doesn't have feelings, it is not self-aware" because therefore you can do whatever you like to them!

Convenient or not, there are people out there who are very keen to find out how things really are.

And in my mind it does come down to self-aware, on a spiritual level as well as a physical level.

What does that even mean? Spiritual?

[kibakiba]

My therapist is quite different from others. She prefers getting to know her clients before anything and doing every thing she can to help. That said, since she knows I love my little garters, she brings them up a lot. She's always interested in knowing how every one of them is doing.

To stay on topic, I've found that Snap bites and hisses more when my hair is in a pony tail than when it's down. Never seen her head go so flat. It was funny. Silly snake.

They are obviously good for you. Any therapist worth a darn will be able to see that. Heck, I can.

[ConcinusMan]

I got a very small radix with "little man syndrome". He greets me with the flattened head, and strikes, every time.

[RedSidedSPR]

Awesome. They are as fun as nice tame ones

[Mommy2many]

They are. Much smarter, more interactive, and more sensitive than many people give them credit for.

Agreed. Wholeheartedly!!!

[Charis]

IMHO, FWIW, while I believe you should be careful about over anthropomorphizing animals, because there are limits to their behaviors, intelligence etc, they are not humans and are not going to act or think about things the way a human would. Still, I think it's wrong to go the other way, if you are expecting a "dumb animal" you generally get a dumb animal. I've noticed this especially with dogs, but also to a degree with a lot of other types of animals, all our dogs have had a lot of personality and are pretty smart. We talk to them all the time and they actually understand quite a bit of what we are saying. However I've met some very big lumps of nothing personality wise dogs, not sure it would be fair to call them stupid, but they are just there. Invariably those are the ones whose owners don't talk to them just to talk, they only acknowledge them to give a command and pretty much ignore them other than that. I've noticed the same thing, to a degree, in snakes.

[guidofatherof5]

Yesterday my good friend and garter buddy came by to deliver my ribbon snake and to see some of the snakes he hasn't seen.
In many of the enclosures I let him pull the hide off the snakes to give him the shock effect on seeing these beauties.
Little did I know the shock effect was going to be on my snakes. The look on their little faces was classic.
Most froze in place and stared at Mark.
This was not a quick stare but a long drawn out watching.
I started feeling sorry for them and stepped in. Many came right up to me.
They are very observant little creatures.