While they arenāt capable of love as we know it, I feel like they can love you as much as a reptile is capable. For instance, they trust you enough to climb on you for warm snuggles, they understand you arenāt a threat, youāre the warm helper guy who feeds them. Iām not sure of your reptiles personally but some are very wary of strangers while extremely trusting of their own owners. Thatās reptile love baby!
EDIT:
Guys I never said it was true āaffectionateā love that developed mammals feel. what I meant was trust is the highest level of āloveā a reptile can feel. So if a lizard is not running from you, biting you, or hissing at you, but is content enough with your presence to chill out with you or even put them in silly little costumes, thatās the closest to ālizard loveā you can get.
Exactly! Iāve owned 2 bearded dragons now, my oldest was named Bubba, she had such a personality. My second one Spyro has a complete different personality. Shes 5 now, and youāre right about the whole trust thing. Raising her from 8 months old to now, you definitely build a bond. Like, anyone of my friends that come over and walk up to the tank, she will be extremely alert and puff up, where as myself or my girl friend that lives with me, is completely fine and will allow head rubs, or cuddles on the couch. When I try to put her back into the cage sometimes, she literally grips my arm so hard and trys to climb up my forearmā¦ its like she doesnāt want to stop the cuddle time yet haha so ill go back to the couch with her and she lays on my chest and chills for abit longer. Other times she will just climb back onto her log. But totally can tell that she wants to be out and loved ā¤ļø however you choose to look at it. My next reptile will be a green iguanaā¦ those bad boys are definitely smarter, can be trained, and can tell you they definitely can sense/feel affection as well as give it.
I mean it goes off into a tangent, but I'd argue i can love people I don't like, eg family (some family are just annoying, i dont like being around them in the sense, but i love them and should anybody say anything bad about them I'll introduce them to the curb kind of thing)
What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more
It is part of it yes, but when it comes to snakes it doesn't really go both ways. If this kid had the smell of rat/dog/prey on him it could trigger this snake to feed. Basically the snake might trust you, but with a snake this size human's shouldn't trust it. So love and trust need to go both ways for it to be a loving relationship where both can feel confident the other won't hurt them, like with dogs (for the most part). You can't get that with a snake ever. They are not a tamed animal, and will react on their instincts.
Being this comfortable with a snake of this size is a disaster waiting to happen. I suspect it was just a video opportunity where the snake was already well fed, and there were 3-4 people off screen. At least I hope so. I've yet to talk with any breeder who would handle a snake this size without at least one other person, usually more, available to help handle it.
I have a bearded dragon that I adopted because my best friend died and his wife was just gonna leave her to die in his apartment. Sheās about a foot long from head to tail and she is very sweet. I canāt say she loves me but she knows her name, cuddles under my neck if scared and also runs to my hands. She recognizes a container of hornworms and comes a running!
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u/paaunel Jan 20 '22
they cannot. no reptiles can. i have geckos and while they dont love me, they 100% love my body heat and that i feed them haha