My Mojave is more active then my other pet rocks, but my leopard. She thinks she is a dog. She seems to really enjoy being out, seems to enjoy being with us. Of course I cant ask her, but behavior wise signs are saying yes bring me out let me explore and hang with you. I have some that absolutely hate being handled or out. My leopard is the only one I have arguements with when its time to go back in her tub.
Ok, I thought it was just my orange dreams, both are hissy. My friend says pinstripe is nasty mean, but mine is a sweetheart. Not as outgoing as my leopard but would still be an amazing educational animal. Both Stitch (pinstripe) and Nala ( leopard) go to the school every so often.
Im not an expert but i believe there is many things that can effect the “personality” of a snake, the newer morphs that have came from the wild probably have a stronger instinct to run,bite. ect because they have not been as domesticated i guess, where something like a pastel that has been around forever has had years and years on captive breeding to kinda breed out the natural fear of us. Also there is probably some neurological changes that come along with the genetics, Most of them just slight changes but IMO could change their “Personalities”
Hahaha…It didn’t enter my mind to compare them to puppies. I have two dogs and I love the to death, but I have ten snakes by now and only two dogs, and believe me, if I would have ten dogs I would really go crazy 
. My god…these animals are a handfull. So believe me, I really appreciate the snake qualities in snakes. That said, like every type of animals there are people who in one way or the other anthropomorphize animals and people who believe an animal is just an animal and things like caracter/personality is something we as people want to see in them.
I’m somewhere in the middle. I think it is important to look at the natural behaviour of animals and give them what they need, even if, for me from a human perspective wouldn’t make me happy. On the other side, one thing that I love in having reptiles is studying them, to see how they behave, with me around an also without me interfering. The different behaviour between animals of the same type ect. ect. The thing I notice in the past two years of having them, is that there is a difference in behaviour between them which I can not all explain by the way I hold them, the age they are now or the age I got them. Of course, with two years I’m by far not an experienced snakeowner , and I will never claim I am. But it does give me the idea that even snakes have some kind of “personality”. I’m even the type of crazy person who likes to talk to them, and some even come to me when I do, some don’t care less. We do take them out and sit with them to watch television or simply do so cleaning ect while they snif around hanging on my shoulder. Some I take more than others because some seem to “like” it more than others ( and yes, my leopard pastave is waiting by the glas till it opens and really climbs out) just like my super mojave and pied girl, but some of the others they seem to almost dodge me when I come so I only take them out for cleaning. I don’t know what is going on in their little brains, there is so much we don’t know. I don’t know if it is a morph thing or not. I just enjoy seeing them do their thing and trying to give meaning to it, even though I know I can never think like a snake and as long as they are doing well, are healty, eat, shed well and they seem fine I think " puppy thinking" doesn’t create any problem to them.
Yeah I don’t know why I get so triggered by the anthropomorphism stuff. I love snakes for what they are. Snakes. I enjoy that they are instinctive. That they are so different from humans. It makes them unique.
People seem to have a need to read human emotions/feelings into them. That I don’t understand. They should be appreciated for what they are. They aren’t emotionally intelligent beings, And that’s totally ok. I don’t need to believe that they have emotions towards me to still love them. Different ones still have different “personalities,” different ones enjoy (tolerate) handling more than others, like I agree that’s super cool. I don’t know why it bothers me honestly because of course people mean no harm in doing it 
I guess I see it as a part of respecting nature? Like the guy that got himself eaten by bears, or like the lady 50 miles down the road from me that sadly was killed by a retic a couple months ago because she insisted she had a “special connection” with it (even though the owner told her she should absolutely not handle it alone.)
Things need to stay in their proper place. Yes I know a ball python incapable of harming anyone but it’s the same principle. We all have the desire to relate new things to things we are familiar with to feel more comfortable with them. But sometimes…I don’t know where I’m going with this lol. Halp
I’ll tell my kid someday our puppy “loves them.” I won’t tell them my snake does, because it doesn’t.
I only posted all this cuz I’ve noticed I get snippy to myself when I see people doing it and I don’t really know why. Does anyone else see this the same way or am I just drawing connections where there’s no need?
Be my shrink. Lol.
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I understand your worry and you are right for a very big part of it. A snake is really not a dog and a dog is also not a human. My son just turned 11 and since he was a baby I’m already telling him that a dog is not a human and has different ways of showing and reacting if they had enough of him so if they growl he should back off. We have a lovely boa but I will never leave him alone with this snake, and even when I’m there he is not allowed to hold the boa around his neck even though she will never intentionally harm him, the result is still bad if she does squeeze to tight . I don’t even hold her around my neck. Animals are simply not humans and we should always be aware of that. Anthromorphisme is not bad as long as you only do it a little bit to give it some extra connection, you are aware you are doing it, and always go for the safe side.
Did it really happen, the story of the woman and the retic? I don’t doubt that retics can. There was a woman here in Holland who thought she had a special connection to a gorilla in the zoo in Rotterdam called Bokito. Bokito thought so too. He managed to escape and was ready to make her his “wife”. It didn’t end well. She survived but with mayor injuries. I don’t know if you need a shrink but I think as long as it doesn’t affect your daily life and you walk around angry whole day because of all those crazy “snake whisperers” I think you will be fine 
. It is not bad to sometimes remind people that animals are not humans and we should respect them for what they are.
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Not sure if y’all thought I was referring to snakes having puppy personalities or not. But I was referring to how active they are. The two I have just seem more active. I Don’t think they are puppies.
Sorry, was a little side step in the discussion 
. Back to mojave personalities or personalities in different morphs in general. My super mojave girl and leopard mojave boy are also very active. @nikkip this leopard mojave boy always wants to come out in the evening, but my super mojave and pied het albino girl to. My champagne pastel OD is indeed the most nippy one, but maybe she just has to get used to me a little more. I have one boy with pinstripe in the mix and he is the only one who likes to hiss when I come in his tub, but when he sees it’s me he immediately stops. Now I shut my mouth and let everyone else give their stories 
man, I like to talk to much…seems to work like that also in writing:crazy_face:
But we know that some of these morphs do change more than just skin pigmentation… head wobble, fertility issues, kinks, etc.
I don’t think it’s a stretch that there could be some general personality differences that are more common for different morphs.
As I mentioned in another thread today, I haven’t worked with Mojaves personally, but at a show I recently attended, I noticed the Mojaves I handled seemed to be more curious and active when compared with non-Mojaves from the same table.
I’ve also heard that the Puzzle gene creates bitey snakes. This could be just a specific line of snakes in a particular collection, or it could hold true across Puzzles from multiple collections. I have no idea but it’s interesting.
It’s not at all a stretch.
A uncountable number of genes are at play and we just don’t know enough about the vast majority of them to know what it is doing what and why.
I had a discussion on here with @t_h_wyman about using CRISPR (basically advanced genetic selection) and in conclusion we just don’t have the resources or commitment to make such a database to the point we can pinpoint exact genes. Mojave could definitely have something underlying that we just don’t know about yet.
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With regards to the anthropomorphism comment above in this thread, I should’ve used “demeanor” instead of “personality.”
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My hero
No in this instance I know what you mean I don’t think personality itself is overboard it’s where you apply/connect that. But thank you for catering to my delicate disposition great comment
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You are making an improper correlation here. The secondary/extended phenotypes you list are a direct result of mutation to a specific metabolic/developmental pathway.
Changes in behavioural like you are thinking of are not intrinsically tied to pigment/pattern mutations however. Instead, they are primarily the result of polygenetics. Again, we see this when we look at domestication. And given the principle driving force in our hobby, a consistency of behavioural traits vis-a-vis morphs is not a likely thing
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My snake comes when his name is called 
I want a mojave now to see if there’s a difference
this thread is very entertaining and enlightening
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what morph do you have??
He was a banana
I feel confident there is at least one dominant type aggressive/defensive ball python gene based on three generations of breeding I did once with an aggressive pet store female. I didn’t correlate it to any visual morph but the animals that had it were consistently more aggressive than the ones I usually try to select for and didn’t outgrow it with age.
Also, not sure I would expect multiple generation captive bred ball pythons to be more docile than ones whose parents lived in the wild. I think a fair number of big ball python breeders actually select for aggression because they believe it is tied to better eaters and breeders. Maybe so far our “domestication” of ball pythons isn’t in the direction of docility.