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Couple weeks ago while out walking my dog and a friend's two HUGE black flat coated retrievers, we were walking by the Preschool and the kids were out. Naturally the kids came running and pet the dogs. Well, teacher and I got to talking and I mentioned they should have me come in with a couple of my snakes. She liked the idea and I got a call this last Friday asking if I could come today, Monday, and Tuesday morning for the opening hour to let the kids see and if they wanted, pet the snakes. Well I bagged up six diff ones, and put them in my big styro box and off we went. It was a real big hit, and I was amazed how well the star of the show, my yearling female black pine took to it! She had no problem being petted by, oh gosh, around twenty kids! And for about fifteen twenty minutes at that. Many of these kids said, as can be expected, that they had never seen, in person, a real snake before... So had a lot of fun. And they sure were curious, they knew that I had a BIG snake in the red cloth bag...and kept asking what was in there...till it was Big Girl's turn to come out, my Northern Pine. She of course is an old hat at this show and tell game and did just fine, all nearly six feet of her, which wowed the kids who practically ran me over to pet her. I just sure was impressed that a yearling black pine had NO problems with all those kids! It was great seeing the smiles and hearing them laugh and talk about their little snake stories and uh, tall tales in some cases! And yes, after Big Girl was put away we all lined up at the sink and washed our hands just in case... Looking forward to tommorow, where once again the lil black pine and Big Girl will do their stuff... exposing kids to the real side of snakes that television and pictures in a book can never show them!
Russell Keys
Keys Reptiles

Awesome that you were able to do that Russell!!!!!!! Very cool of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Always amazing to see how snakes can make people freak out in a good way, ya know? You may have influenced future herpers!!!

Billy
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Genesis 1:1

np
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Anthony Chodan

www.gradeareptiles.com

Excellent work, Russell. It's always nice to hear of kids having a positive experience with our serpent friends. It's the best way to combat the fear and misinformation that so many kids have about snakes.

It's nice to hear that your black pine did so well. My black pine will be making her debut in some talks I have scheduled for July. I hope that mine does as well with the kids as yours did!

Glad to hear the pits did great with the kids and that is really nice of you to help educate them, there is a lot of people around my area that would benefit from more interactions with snakes. Great job Russell!

Gregg F.

>>Couple weeks ago while out walking my dog and a friend's two HUGE black flat coated retrievers, we were walking by the Preschool and the kids were out. Naturally the kids came running and pet the dogs. Well, teacher and I got to talking and I mentioned they should have me come in with a couple of my snakes. She liked the idea and I got a call this last Friday asking if I could come today, Monday, and Tuesday morning for the opening hour to let the kids see and if they wanted, pet the snakes. Well I bagged up six diff ones, and put them in my big styro box and off we went. It was a real big hit, and I was amazed how well the star of the show, my yearling female black pine took to it! She had no problem being petted by, oh gosh, around twenty kids! And for about fifteen twenty minutes at that. Many of these kids said, as can be expected, that they had never seen, in person, a real snake before... So had a lot of fun. And they sure were curious, they knew that I had a BIG snake in the red cloth bag...and kept asking what was in there...till it was Big Girl's turn to come out, my Northern Pine. She of course is an old hat at this show and tell game and did just fine, all nearly six feet of her, which wowed the kids who practically ran me over to pet her. I just sure was impressed that a yearling black pine had NO problems with all those kids! It was great seeing the smiles and hearing them laugh and talk about their little snake stories and uh, tall tales in some cases! And yes, after Big Girl was put away we all lined up at the sink and washed our hands just in case... Looking forward to tommorow, where once again the lil black pine and Big Girl will do their stuff... exposing kids to the real side of snakes that television and pictures in a book can never show them!
>>Russell Keys
>>Keys Reptiles
>>
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Gregg F.

www.greggsrb.com

You've done a wonderful service for those children! I am a preschool teacher who has always had a classroom pet snake. At present we have a mexi black king, although my pits and others come to visit regularly.

The impact of introducing kids to herps at this age is incredible! My favorite story is of a visitor who was trying to interact with a plush snake with one of my older three year-olds, making the toy hiss and chase other toys, etc..

The child was looking at this university student like she'd lost her mind, and finally spoke. "That's not a real snake. We have a real snake. Come on, I'll show you. He's friendly and he eats wet mice." The 3 year-old then led this young woman over to the enclosure, and began telling her all sorts of wonderful factual information, including how to "melt" a frozen rat in warm water so the snake can eat it. Two years later this same child became the proud owner of a hatchling sired by the classroom pet. Life can be so good.

Regards,
althea

You really can't underestimate the impact you will have had on those children. Part of the reason that I am keeping snakes was because someone came to my high school when I was a freshman and opened up a whole new world to me. I've done a few of these exhibits myself now and there's nothing more gratifying!!!
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"Umm Marge, did you find my snake farm? I'm going to farm and sell snakes"- homer simpson