Have your various animals, reptiles or not, ever seen each other? Or had safe controlled interactions where allowable?
What did they do?
Do they seem to see other creatures as prey or threats? Or something strange and interesting?
(Obviously: Never allow two disparate species to interact freely/without the correct safety measures. Especially not dogs or cats or birds and your reptiles. Safety First!)
I just let Signe my little dog climb onto my lap while I was watching my baby BP Finnley explore his new in-progress enclosure. I was exercising him to get some of his wiggles out, as he is edgy today due to an incoming barometric pressure drop and moving seems to help him settle down. She always seems a little jealous when I pay attention to the snakes instead of her, but she’s never seemed to realize they were alive before.
She. Was. Riveted.
It wasn’t her Food/Prey fixation, it was like when I play music. She seemed fascinated. So curious to keep watching him and be able to see what he was doing, and when I picked him up, she asked to sniff. (nonverbal body language communication thing we do)
He was perfectly calm, so I let her sniff one of his coils, and she tried to lick his tail. I did not let her do that (she licks everything she thinks is fascinating, because it smells cool)
Then she followed me into my sewing room and watched me put him in his bin and she kept standing on her hind legs, trying to see where he went. I had to sit at the worktable and let her up on my lap so she could see, to watch him some MORE.
I went back to bed and she spent the last few minutes trying to ask me to get up. Probably to ask to see the weird rope again!
(Yes my dog and I do a weirdo nonverbal communication thing. She’s very expressive of her basic ideas and we spend most of our time together so we know each other well.)
One of our cats will occasionally sit and snake watch. He especially liked watching one of the bullsnakes. As far as interacting goes I don’t let it happen, won’t let it happen. Not worth dealing with potential bad results.
I have snakes, spiders, cats, and a chinchilla. I don’t let any of them interact directly, because…well, duh. Spiders will eat other spiders, snakes will eat other snakes, the larger snake would eat the chinchilla, the chinchilla would eat the spiders, and the cats would eat everyone.
My cats kept trying to lie on top of my blood python’s tub, but I don’t think they knew or cared that there was anything alive inside. Pretty sure it was just because there’s a heat mat on the lid, so it was a nice toasty platform, making it irresistible to felines. I ended up having to stack a bunch of empty boxes on top of the tub to keep them off it.
The only inter-species interaction is between the cats and chinchilla. The chin’s cage is in the living room, so the cats have access to it (though they can’t get into it). But not to worry, the cats are actually afraid of the chinchilla. Margaret, my chin, is VERY territorial (in the wild, it’s the female chinchillas who are larger and more dominant, and are responsible for defending their herd’s territory), and will not hesitate to spray the cats with urine and bite them through the cage bars if they get too close. They tend to give her a wide berth.
My cat is the same. She loves to lay on my bed and just watch my beardie for hours. I’ve never had them out of the enclosure together but they do watch each other. Although one time my cat was in my room whilst i had him out and i didn’t notice. Luckily she just laid and watched him and when i saw her i kicked her out lol
My cat will sit at the front of the baby corn snake bins and watch them intently. I usually end up moving him, just in case the babies do not like being stared in on by a big tabby cat. Lol. I definitely don’t let them interact though because my cat would 100% try to “play” with them…would not end well.
I hold my snakes when my dogs are around but I don’t let them interact just because my dogs like to chase bunnies and things like that. So it makes me nervous. They have also killer a wild adult cornsnake that was in my yard, which just confirmed my concern of them with the snakes.
