Hi everyone! I’m planning to add a dog to our family in the near future. I’m thinking about getting a Cocker Spaniel once we move to our new place. I’d love to hear your experiences with having snakes and dogs in the same home. Do snakes react to dogs or their scent as potential prey? Do dogs trigger hunting instincts in snakes? And do your dogs stay close when the snakes are out of their enclosures under supervision? I’m really curious about real-life stories from people who have both!
It’s been a while since I last posted, so just a quick update — our boa girl is doing great, still very calm and sweet. We also decided to get another boa and will be picking him up in two weeks! Soon our family will be 2+2, which is really exciting.
Potentially. Dogs can also very much so see snakes as prey. I have had the unfortunate time witnessing my dog treat wild snakes in my back yard like rope toys.
Absolutely not. My dog or cats are never present when snakes are out and being handled. Either I put them up or I handle my snakes in a closed room the other animals cannot access. Not only does it risk the dog or cats killing my snakes it also risks transmissible diseases. And in the case of Boas, you wouldn’t want to run the risk of the snake harming or even killing the dog. Depending on the size of the Boa you wouldn’t be able to stop them once they get ahold of a small animal.
Again in the case of a Boa and a small dog, yes potentially.
So just in general under no circumstances should a Boa and a Cocker Spaniel be within the same vicinity, have your Boas in a seperate area or room of the house and do not handle the Boas around the dog.
Sorry for the bluntness but I hope my advice helps and is heeded, it will prevent a lot of pain.
I have had several different dogs and cats around reptiles, birds, rabits, and other animals with no issues. However, you will need to take precautions and be vigilant in order to prevent injury, death, and heart break.
Keep your enclosure secure and minimum of 5 to 6ft from your dogs capable reach or in a separate room. I would maintain that same distance when handaling your snake when the dog is present or keep a firm grip on the dog if your snake is out. Most dogs and cats will kill snakes while most snakes will strike at prey or in defense against unknow predators. Experience and understanding your animals will dictate what you are willing to allow. Just keep in mind that Experience may come at a cost of a dead animal.
Your snake can be more defensive and aggressive under certain circumstances while your dog may show aggression toward you or your snake under certain circumstances.
There is no typically it does not and should not happen forcefully. Period
Reptiles do not form bonds with other animals. However much we would want it to happen it just doesn’t work that way.
Unfortunately people anthropomorphise animals too often and that occasionally leads to disaster.
Other animals should not be present at all during reptile handling. A dog or cat can easily slip by out our of your grip, or your reptile could easily escape and lead to a potential disaster.
I know I’m being really strict about this one but I strongly recommend against other animals being near or around reptiles that are not contained.
My new kitten was trying to eat cinnomon my ball python through her tank and hissing at her to cinnomon didnt care just kept crusing around but thebkitten was hissing and swatting her tank because she was out where he could see my bet doggos would react similar
I don’t have dogs, but I do have cats and had a housemate with a dog when I got my first snake.
Generally, it’s not a good idea to allow your dogs and/or cats to interact with your reptiles. Both my boa and my blood python have shown a sort of amped up food response when they see my cats through the glass of their enclosures. My blood python hates my cats when she’s out and will hiss and puff up if she sees them while she’s out. My boa doesn’t seem to care much about the cats when she’s out, but I still wouldn’t trust them to interact with each other.
If I’m going to have my snakes out free roaming in my room or even just on my bed, I shut the cats out of the room. There’s just too much that could go wrong very quickly. If I’m just pulling a snake out and just holding it in my hands, I’m a little less militant about shutting one cat out; she’s never reacted strongly to the snakes, so I feel like I can at least trust her to not jump up and try to grab them out of my hands. But I don’t trust my other cat AT ALL where the snakes are concerned. He’s VERY interested in them when he sees them moving around in their enclosures, so I kick him out of the room any time I so much as crack an enclosure open. He’s also very interested in my boa’s whole enclosure and tries to go inside it every time I open the door so that’s another reason he’s not allowed nearby when I open enclosures.
There’s nothing wrong with having dogs and snakes in the same home. Lots of people on here also have dogs and/or cats in addition to reptiles. But I absolutely do not recommend letting free roaming mammal pets interact with your reptiles. Things could go tragically wrong before you even have a chance to react. I would personally never take that risk.
This ai generated picture might be a bit misleading, but I’ve never really considered letting a snake and a dog get so close to each other! I’m wondering if our hands could be at risk if they smell like dog. After all, the whole environment might smell like dog.
Yes, you could get bitten by smelling like dog or any other animal. I personally have not gotten bitten because of my dogs being around me while handling my snakes.
I have been bitten on several occasions after cleaning fish. Its hard to get the smell off and they go crazy for some reason when they smell fish blood. I would be more comfortable handling a snake after touching a rodent or having a room full of defrosting rats than touching a snake with fish stench.
I’ve never had that issue…though it’s worth mentioning that two out of three of my snakes have very strong prey drives, so I always tap them down before I reach my hands into their enclosure.
Here’s Lenore (boa) staring down one of the cats when she saw him moving around outside her enclosure (she came right up to the glass and was fixated on his every movement).
So yeah, they’re definitely interested in each other, and for that reason, they will only ever see each other through glass. I honestly don’t trust either of them as far as I can throw them.
So this was something I had the unpleasant situation with a few months back. Entirely my fault and it was something I take seriously and did not wait on so everything worked out well. (Or mostly. She did have a bit of an allergic reaction to one of the first treatments)
Not a boa but still of the legless reptile variety.
My small dog was creating a ruckus about being left home alone and me being near the rats without her. She is obsessed with watching them while I’m cleaning tubs.
The rodents are in the same room most of my reptiles are in. There were two runty crawlers who were not latching well, so I decided to feed them off. The first tub was fine. Second tub the water was low and that 2 second half turn was enough for the BP to drop the rat and take a pop at my dog. She had just enough time to do a little prairie dog peek at where the rat went.
12lb dog vs 200g Ball python. Great aim on the BP’s part. An hour after it happened was when we made the vet decision. I was able to see the scratch.
Asked the vet for a quick stain of the eye, of course it had uptake -that’s the bit of bright color stained on her fur. This photo was 48 hours after when one of the 2 meds prescribed cause more inflammation. But regardless, I was happy she was on antibiotic drops immediately.
Everyone at the vet had been acting like she was an action hero once they realized that I was serious when I said eye injury. One nurse asked if the snake had grabbed her too. I should have brought the noodle with me to be like “here’s the biter”, -pull snake from pocket-
Her vet got a good laugh though. We used to work together so he knows when I call that it’s an actual issue. He also complimented the snake’s aim. Lol
Otherwise…
Outside of this issue, she has been in the room for hatchling feedings but she is never in there for anything larger. She has been around(4ft away or so) larger snakes but that has only been under full supervision while I was controlling the snake. *
Cats? Never allowed near them when tubs are open or snakes are out.
By controlling, I mean handling with a good hand around the front 1/3rd of the snake to keep them from striking. Also never any other species than ball pythons. I do not let my Retics near anything that can be confused as food. Including fuzzy blankets or cat toys.
I hope it won’t be too hard for me to combine my love for different animals. Keeping animals without direct contact is fairly easy to manage, but what worries me is the smell. @jawramik, have you noticed if your snake reacts in any way to the smell of your cat — for example, when the smell is on your hands or in your bed if your cat sleeps there?
Just wash your hands thoroughly before handling your snake and don’t handle your snake in and on your bed. Actually your typical house cat is pretty much everywhere, the couch, the chairs, etc. A dog is no different. You will just have to practice a little common sense. There are thousands of households with keepers who manage scales and fur just fine.
I’ve never had any issues with that. I’m sure my whole condo smells like cats, so I’d imagine it’s just become another environmental smell to the snakes by now.
The only reptile I have that ironically is not in the same room as my rodents is my Boa because I know how much they can respond to scent and she does have a very strong food response.
Otherwise I’ve had no issues with prey odor being around my other snakes, my Kingsnakes are much more movement driven by their food and my Ball Pythons seem to have a nonexistent food drive unless a rodent is directly infront of them.
My Amazon Tree Boa is food driven mainly by warmth so I have a difficult time handling him anyways lol.
As long as you wash your hands/arms after interacting with another animal such as your puppy and potentially having a clothing change should negate any possibility of your Boas reacting with a food drive towards you.
Yeah, I can’t imagine raising rodents in the same room as my boa and blood python, that sounds like a nightmare.
@z-a-r-i-n-a, I really don’t think my snakes associate the smell of my cats with food. Sometimes they have a food response to seeing their movement outside the enclosure, but those responses seem to be specifically based on sight, not smell.
The only mammal pet I ever really worried about smell with was my chinchilla, just because she was a rodent and lived in a separate room, so her smell seemed more likely to smell novel and delicious to the snakes. I’d always wash my hands/arms really well and sometimes change my shirt after playing with the chinchilla and before interacting with my snakes. Sadly my chin passed away a couple months ago, so it’s a non-issue now, but that was the only “pet smell” I thought might trigger a food response from my snakes.
Ive never had the problem with my ball python and smell of kitty causing a reaction i usually wear my sweaters when handling cinnamon (because shes newer) and iron man (because hes devensive) and the cats like to use my sweater as a bed sometimes when i put it on the couch and i have to pick up kitties to put them in the other room right before handling
so that’s another reason he’s not allowed nearby when I open enclosures.
I’m wondering if our hands could be at risk if they smell like dog. After all, the whole environment might smell like dog.
