Reptile Fight Club - Is the Industry about the Keeper or the Kept? with Daniel Yates

Episode Date: July 23, 2022

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of Is the Industry about the Keeper or the Kept? with Daniel Yates.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to the LVR Network. All right, welcome to another edition of Reptile Fight Club. I'm your host, Justin Julander. Unfortunately, I am Chuck-less today. Chuck is overwhelmed with work. They are just killing him there. So it's kind of rough, rough for him. He's been working weekends and stuff. So, but we've got a guest today. So I'm here with Daniel Yates. So thanks for coming on today and excited to have a little discussion with you those 12 hour shifts yeah oh my god i i feel for you chuck man seven days a week it's crazy yeah it's like oh well those those shifts where it's three on you know three off or four off and three four on and so on so forth oh my

god it's like you get an extra day but but you have to sleep it away. Yeah. You don't actually get an extra day. You're so tired that you can't do anything. Yeah. It's been pretty lucky just to have eight hour days, you know, no weekends. I mean, not too often. Yeah. You're academic. I know what it's like to write papers i mean it's insane and that's you know it's it's absolutely it doesn't matter like you're gonna spend so much extra time outside of it people i mean i worked for a pharmaceutical company once and I was called a government stooge by some people.

People don't understand how much scientists don't get paid. Yeah. Like, it's like, well, scientists, you know, you're in on it. Like, no. No, they're not. Like, you don't understand. That guy is just spending his life doing something that he enjoys that makes him feel good about himself because he's helping other people. And that's, I mean, probably 80% of scientists do it for the work.

Whether that's actually the subject. There's so many things in place to actually keep us from benefiting because that would kind of destroy that science being unbiased. And if you're getting paid by somebody, that biases you pretty quick. So, yeah, they have a lot of things in place to keep you from that. So, yeah. There's a whole science behind ignorance. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That's for sure. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, nobody goes into science to be rich that's for same same with the reptiles i suppose but oh my god oh oh i know you guys get a little political on here and oh my god i i may run for congress in 2024 if nobody runs against biden i may actually do it i yeah people don't understand i'm not i'll be a democrat but i i i don't know no i have an idea on every single subject you could ever imagine my brain is chaos it's literally if you don't touch on 20 subjects in five minutes, you've never had a real conversation with me. Well, that should make for definitely an interesting conversation tonight.

Oh, my God. I mean, we've just started. How many topics have we touched on so far? Well, I'm getting overwhelmed here with snakes. So we've got a bunch of stuff hatching out and um a few lizards as well but yeah a lot of a lot of anteresia hatching out i've got a bunch of carpets i need to i started uh getting the jungle carpets to feed so that's been nice the most of them have taken uh food so excited to have jungles again and trying to get the Inlands set up and started as well.

This is how smart I am. Like this may seem like a dumb question to a lot of people, but people need to understand. The way I see intelligence is massively different than the way most people see intelligence. This is something I told you I'd say in here. Okay. I'm trying not to get off topic and stuff i'm not a big snake guy i like snakes i have no issues with them i i wouldn't mind owning a few but it's not something that's like out there like i'm like oh my god i am the lizard brain guy i i listen to lizard brain radio guy i Oh, yeah. They do a good job.

Yeah. And he makes you feel like you're part of it. So for me, intelligence isn't about what you know. It's just foolish to think that we could ever know everything. It's insane. So, okay. I was at a show and I've got these buddies that they run a booth and they're, they're good people. They really are. And, but they, there's some funny stuff that they do.

They'll have customers that'll have a snake in their hand and the person will go, is this, is this venomous? Yes. Yes, it is. No, no, it's not. What? Seriously. This day and age, though, with all the people on social media

holding venomous and stuff, I guess maybe it's a legit question these days. There's some foolish people out there for sure. When we get further into this, we'll have some talks about this. This is a very interesting point that I think once we get further into the talk, I think I'll try. Like I said, I'm trying to stay more on topic. So there was a kid in there, and he's trying to just – he constantly says venomous, venomous, venomous, venomous, venomous. I'm very good

about not getting annoyed with people. I take my dragons out for walks. My bearded dragons. I actually outfitted a stroller to fit all three of them. And I take them down to the local lake

i am not the crazy guy with the lizard it's weird i am the nice guy with the lizards i'm the smart guy with the lizards i'm that guy with the lizards oh look at the lizards it's not the two people that i've gotten oh my god what what are you doing? We're actually reptile people. We're actually reptile people going, you're that guy. I'm like, I'm that guy. I'm okay with it because it's good for the dragon's mental health. You can see them soaking it in. Just looking around, just taking it all in.

Just their brain just going in a mile a minute it's wonderful i love neuroscience and with a background in actual non-verbal human communication i can actually see this in them i have videos i have a youtube channel learning for my reptiles and i actually have the non-verbals of the bearded dragon beard you know if they get black right here under the ear it's I'm a little upset I'm a little sickly and or I'm a little annoyed pitch my baby girl the first reptile I ever got does this chin strap and she hates getting put into the tote but as soon as we get to the lake she gets so excited she gets more bubbly and just like oh my god like we pass by the exit because i made a video a while back do reptiles think in 3d and we were driving by the exit to the lake and i told her we were

going to the lake next thing i know her eyes follows the exit and then she looks back at me like where the hell are we going like it's wonderful to see that because she is very intelligent this is actually something i i need to i want to teach people how to do better research and so one thing that we're going to work on here, because I had an epiphany. Pitch is a mean girl. Pitch the Bitch is her name. No, I don't want you running around like that. Pitch the Bitch is her nickname, and it she fits.

So she's going after my youngest, Hydra, in his enclosure. And she's hitting that glass she runs around the tank i watched another video where this dragon wants to add another dragon that's up high in an enclosure he goes underneath it up the wall behind and comes all the way around like he's actually going to come around to get the dragon that's massive thinking in 3d pitch is super intelligent for a beard so why isn't she doing something like that maybe when she runs down the little hallway she forgets like a human they actually have that short-term memory because they don't have a massive long-term memory but yet they have massive long-term memory like they have so much stored in that that perhaps

their short-term memory is actually more it's something that i would love to research and i want to do an episode not if the not showing that this is exactly what happens because i could be completely wrong but where i would start the research so people could see actually how to do full research if i can get my peter bandits to actually mate when i move out of this apartment yeah like next year sometime i want to take three years and study their growth rate and i want to show people how to do a proper study in that kind of thing yeah there has been some uh research on uh spatial memory in lizards i think uh 2017 there was a study i think it was like a fence lizard or something something out of madagascar though i think it was it was a specialty lizard that you don't normally think of and it literally mapped it's it's in deal lucky my emerald

green tree skink does it i've got video on it and he's literally mapping it and i show you i actually stop the video and like show you these clips um calm fancy i've got on the video he actually my oldest beardy he takes the hunting stance because this is this the tail up is i'm alert the tail like this like a dog is i'm hunt mode anytime he's chasing a worm you'll see this tail do this and so his tail's done this and the curtain on my other bearded dragon tank falls down but pitch and hydra have been hiding from the UV for a couple of hours now. So all of a sudden he's looking in their tank. Like,

where are they? Where are they? I want to chase them off. Why are they not there? It's, it's, it's his memory. Everybody goes,

Oh, well, it's, it's his, uh, it's his, um, smell.

It's like, no, bearded dragon smells not that good. They have vision. It's really interesting. And everybody talks like this is one thing that me and Dylan from Animal Home, we get along famously for this because I got green anoles, and I'll tell you how freaking awesome they are. Oh, yeah. I just watched the one earlier today had a Mohawk. He Mohawked himself up and he was trying to go after the girls and she didn't

have, she didn't want none. She was like, no. And she jumping, jumping out. It's like, that's so cool. But how come a bearded dragon cannot see glass, cannot understand glass, but yet a green anole can? There are over 200 times difference in size. So their brains are. I've talked about the color change of the green and knolls that spot of their brain is probably so small but yet anything around it that goes off could set off their their freaking color change so you can't really narrow down until you know their actual brain chemistry and where that is in the brain because i love

neurosensors only thing i'd go back to school for so they could have a fart and change colors you know i mean but if we think about it a snake flicks its tongue pulls in that air and sees in 3d like a dog would skinks kick out that tongue often so there must be doing something similar. Whereas like a bearded dragon, it sees it, it licks it, it's figuring out if this is food, what this is, how this works. It's like, this is localized. Well, an actual... My green anoles walk up to the window and leap onto it. Well, if they're sticking like a gecko, where it's that molecular bond,

what if they're seeing like they're actually interacting? So their whole understanding of the world is so much different than anything we could even comprehend because they're actually interacting on a molecular level even though it's something like a lincoln london force where it's not very strong they're still doing on a molecular level and so that's why they possibly and i'm not saying this is correct i'm just saying this is what's going through my head right now i'm so busy i listened to this this guy the other day on youtube who's a breeder thing and he finally got to researching stuff and he's like i spent like three days researching on this one topic it's like oh my god it's like yeah welcome to science three days must be right

yeah yeah so he's like i'm so busy that i can't just stop everything and do this like i i literally i fought myself let's let's go back like i said i'm trying not to because like i said we have to rein you in a little here yeah like you're yeah you're all over the place but yeah let's that kid that was talking the venomous, venomous, venomous, venomous, and I got annoyed with him. And I felt bad about it afterwards, but I kind of snapped. I'm like, I don't like talking about venomous. I don't care about it. It's not important to me.

You see that way that snake is on your fingers right there? That shows me that that snake is not scared of you. It is, it is experiencing the world right now from your fingertips. I think that is super cool. The behavior of that snake is just so cool. And that kid stopped and he started looking at it and he started thinking about it.

He had a little more to say, but nothing fancy. I felt horrible about had a little more to say but nothing fancy i felt horrible about snapping a little bit because you know that kid felt that i snapped a little bit but i didn't stop there and like just brush him off completely so i didn't hate what i did but i didn't love it so yeah and i talked to the people there i'm like i feel kind of bad about it and they're like oh no you're okay you did really fantastic with that. You're really good at kids. This is why I think I'm sorry. So the guy from Lizard Brain Radio. I wrote him, I told him everything that happened.

And I said, okay, so I know you run shows. You deal with kids all the time. How could I have handled this better? How could I have done better here? Because I want to do better. That's how you tell when somebody's actually intelligent. When it's not just, oh, I did great and I'm fine with whatever. It's, hey, how could I do more? How can I be better?

And so you look to somebody who's going to know the subject better than you. Even if he tells you if you're like, like, like he tells you that you're right. You still look for a better answer. And he did. He was like,

yeah, you could try to talk to him about venomous or change him to a subject that you're more familiar with. It's like, yeah, that's great. And so, yeah,

Bill's a good one to ask for that. He's, he does a lot of shows and has a lot of experience i love the way he does his podcast he makes you feel like you're in it yeah and you know freaking i had uh i've had some pets die on me i've had just about everything one of everything i've had pretty much pass away on me. Yeah, that's the downside of dealing with... It really is. And oh my God, it breaks me down every time.

This is a... I know people at home can't see it, but it's... I got the actual deal from Phil Gross and it's U.S. art. Yeah. And that is made from a death mold of an emerald green tree U.S. art pin that is made from a death mold of an emerald green tree skin. Okay. And it's an actual pin.

How cool. If I actually get my company going, what I eventually want to do is put organs, 3D print organs for educational purposes and put inside some of these things because I've got this one, I've got bearded dragons. I made into a business card slash inset holder.

That's interesting. Yeah. I, I was, uh, I was reading the new book by Rick shine, Dr. Shine. Uh, he wrote a book, uh, so many snakes, a little time. And I just got that book and it's's a fantastic book, really, really cool stuff. What a scientist, man. That guy's published over a thousand papers, but he said when he was starting out, there were no real, you know, it was hard to know what the anatomy of a snake was, like which organ was which, because it's so different than a mammalian organ system, and nobody

was really doing snake research, at least in Australia, at the time when he started. And everybody told him, don't bother with it. It's just too crazy. So, you know, it was a fantastic book. I'd highly recommend it. But, yeah, so that would be an interesting thing to have some organs, you know, to educate. That'd be neat. Yeah.

I've gotten to meet Snake snake discovery i'm a huge fan of theirs yeah they do i think they do wonderful work with kids we're quite a bit different between us but i think they're amazing yeah and so when i finally get to 3d printing organs i can't do it in this damn apartment i hate this place so much i get terrified that my animals are going to die because of how bad the electric is here just this is why i'm trying to start a company so i can get out of this apartment by november and i don't need that much i just need enough to get out then get the 3d printing and actually print organs and print some inserts but i want to make a cabinet that's actually made to actually be interactive for like snake discovery zoo.

That shows the anatomy of these animals. That would be cool. Yeah. I know. And like I want to take. I want to be into that. I want to take and put the organs on the outside and I want to take and actually take a, a plaster of it. And I want to take that and stick on the sides where the steps are for kids to get up and see in it.

So kids can actually touch it without breaking stuff off yeah i want it to be as interactive and just as amazing and those guys are so good with kids i've heard so many stories about kids wanting to go to be a vet and stuff like that i mean yeah let's let's take a little step back and have you introduce yourself and kind of where you fit into herpetoculture. Well, I've been in everywhere. I am Daniel Yates. The guard shack at work knows me as the lizard. Yeah, so I think I'm rarer than a Mackinwookie.

I really do. I grew up in southwest Missouri. If you've ever heard of Knoll, Missouri, I grew up on the opposite side of the county from that. If you've heard of Joplin, Missouri, I grew up away from that. I grew up, it was 30 minutes to a Walmart. Okay, so out there a bit. Yeah, they didn't put the house that I grew up in on Google until three years ago. Oh, wow. Yeah, like I grew up way out there in Boonies.

Okay. And I went to school a town away until junior high. So I didn't actually have a kid that lived near me until I was in junior high, and that was a mile down the road. My brother's five years older than me and has a learning disability. So he's very aggressive and stuff when we were younger. I mean, and I'm a kid and I'm supposed to have a learning disability. To me, the school system took 10 years of my life from me because of that.

Nobody ever told me that I was good at math. I have an associates in physics, a bachelor's in polymer chemistry focused on medical tech. And I have studies in nonverbal human communication. I mean, for crying out loud, but I'm learning disabled. I suck at grammar and spelling,

but I can read and comprehend more than most. The first book I ever read was The Black Hole Wars by Leonard Susskind. My battle with Stephen Hawking to make the universe safe for quantum mechanics. And I read it when I was 26. And so as a kid, I had to grow up and learn to control my anger because of my brother being learning disabled and stuff. And then being grown up out there with a five-year-old brother who's disabled mentally. So pretty much what's happened is I grew up an only child with not the peer review. I always call it the peer review.

So I didn't have a bunch of kids all the time around me just filling my head full of stuff. So I really was a blank slate coming out of school compared to most. Did you live in good habitat for reptiles and amphibians? Were you into them back then? That's the thing. I had stray cats. I seen the little long-tailed, and that was it. I was not a hermitologist back then i was not at all

like it was not a big thing for me i just but yet i still wandered out in the woods all the time i can't tell you how many ticks i pulled off me and so i'm probably immune to so many diseases now because of that stuff. But as I went along in the years and after doing everything that I did, I've learned so many subjects. I worked for Lazy Boy building chairs for seven and a half years. The last four, I got my degree in physics, going to school full time in person.

And I worked four o'clock in the afternoon to two 30 in the morning. There was more, there was mornings I had to choose between shitting and sleeping. And a friend of mine said it best. He said, if you choose one, you might end up doing both. And it's just like, so I get what Chuck's going through i really do so yeah with that as i got the jobs and i got out of school finally and stuff and i got a job working 12 hours and then that fell through and i went on the pharmaceutical thing and that job was so toxic. And I'm like, okay, I want to get me a fish tank.

So I go out and look at fish tanks and realize how much it takes to get a fish tank. So it's like, okay, so what can I do other than this? So I went to look at reptiles and the lady at the big box store big box store big box yeah and so it's like don't don't get a chameleon they're not the best for beginners you want to get a bearded dragon it's like okay okay so we'll look so we looked and it's like okay so i seen one that's running around a lot and that's what i hear because i did my homework that I could. And so pitch is running around the tank. Two weeks later I go back.

It was the day before the Chiefs were supposed to play Tampa Bay in the Super Bowl. I always say supposed to. I'm a Chiefs fan. You know, it's... So

ever since I got a reptile, the chiefs have not done crap when it comes to finishing a season. It's like, damn it. No, it's like, I'm still not giving up my reptiles guys. I'm sorry. It's just not going to happen. Bitch is my baby girl. I love her to death.

So it's only been a couple years then right because they yeah it is amazing like i've surpassed so many 20 year keepers that he said but that's because my backgrounds and so on and so forth and i'm always willing to learn i i plug into multiple podcasts i'm not an extremist in any point of view. An extremist is a person that has an idea that they cannot get away from, like a belief system of any kind. And it's as simple as that. And I'm just not that guy. I always want to learn because of the way I was raised. My dad did actually take me to museums and stuff. So for me, I would love to go herping. Looking back and thinking about the exact trees that I used to play on and going, oh, man, I wonder if I'd have busted that open.

I wonder what lizards I could have saw in there. Oh, my God. Like, oh, man. And so that's why the lizards, because of my background in nonverbal, the lizards have really, like, to me, because I see something there. And I just got some zebra skinks. A lady that I know that I talked to about Peter Bandit skinks, she actually gave them to me for free because they had kink tails. Because the female had too big of a clutch. And so some of the eggs got smashed. And she didn't want to be known as breeding trash,

even though they're perfectly healthy. Yeah. And so I got in, I just love them already. Like it hadn't even been a week. Yeah. And like, I see the behaviors. And I want to help people put the studies together. I want to step into herpetology not to be the guy that's the smartest

in the room. I want to help other people be able to help themselves. I actually think we should have a law that says you need a license to have a bearded dragon just like that. But it's like a $20, you need to license to have a bearded dragon just like that but it's like a 20 you need to take a test because it's amazing how many people i meet that cannot read a light bulb and it's like they have a bit of a like that in utah with the the law system where if you want to collect one from the wild you need to do a an online quiz and then if you pass the quiz you can buy a license to to collect a you know wild reptile and then be able to keep it as a as a pet so it's you know

kind of a cool uh step in the right direction i like the uh idea of educating you know yourself before and a lot of people i mean we kind of live in a in a instant gratification world right now and so a lot of people just they see it they they want it, they buy it, and then they think about it maybe later or they get bored with it after a couple of weeks and they want to move on. You know, it's like, yeah, that's not the best. You know, when you're talking. Yeah. We're not talking about like you have to know the exact on this exact animal. It's you have to know air temperature versus surface

have to be able to understand humidity where to surrender your animal if you have to where to do you know what's wild caught versus captive bred the ferguson zones little things like this that should be known by everybody so they can actually do their own education. And I think if we actually outlaw the selling of anybody that doesn't have one, then it actually makes it to where the stores cannot sell you. The expos can't even let you in without one person in your party having a license. So therefore, we actually force the pet stores to carry what we want them to carry because the people are more educated. That would be interesting. Yeah. I think that's a great way to start out.

Well, let's dive into the topic. So you suggested a topic. This is more important now than ever. All right. What do you got for us? What's the topic you want to discuss? Do you want to introduce it? I think we should break it down into kind of two different things here.

Is the hobby about people or is it about the animals? And then should it be about the people or should it be about the animals okay all right well uh yeah let's uh do a coin toss see who gets which side so um i guess you know if you want to uh defend the is the hobby about the animals or is the hobby about the keepers right okay you want to call it here we go tails i guess it's tails yeah what side do you want to defend i listen yeah there's actually is a mathematical the the actual it says that the one that's the face up is more likely to hit like 51 or something like that more than the other so okay yeah yeah it's interesting i never show what side is up when i flip though so yeah i know right like it's there's physics involved here as long as you're keeping it consistent you can

actually muscle memory that stuff like i want to take the side that it's about the people okay and then i'll take the side that it's it's it should be about the people okay interesting yeah it works yeah i think that gives you a fair advantage and like that because it's 100 about the people well do you want to start out or do you want me to start i don't care either way okay um i'll give it a go here so um i guess in when we're when we're keeping live animals uh we need to definitely cater to their needs we need to try to design our enclosures we need to provide the things that they need i mean if we make it about us a lot of times the animals are the ones that suffer. And so, you know, I think we need to kind of focus on learning as much as

we can about the natural history, about the needs, about the diet, you know, all those kind of things, the thermal requirements of the reptile and make it, you know, about, about the reptile so we can, uh, ensure that they have a long and happy life and that they are, um, you know, comfortable. They're getting the things that they need to thrive. And, um, yeah, that's basically the, the starting point I'd, I'd hit on first. It, It doesn't even matter where you start with this. Because psychology shows us that if you do something good with your life, if you do something good. So firefighters, oh man, they do such an amazing job saving people. Well, they do it because it makes them feel better about themselves.

It makes them feel good. So, and I know you guys have talked about mental health. This thing is huge for mental health to keep reptiles. I mean, so think about what's the first thing somebody wants after having a positive experience? Another one. So if that's the case, then everything we do in this hobby that has any positive thing, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad for the animal makes people feel good. And therefore it's about them. It is a, I mean,

it shouldn't be, But hey, you can't stop psychology. It's in our nature to want to satisfy ourselves. Like you said, everybody is looking for that deal. And that's why for me, that's why I make the videos that I make. And I've had people, well, dude, you could do shorts and you could do this and you could do that to get more subscribers. I don't care about the subscriber count. I want people in my life that make me feel like I can be better. It's like I want to do better.

I actually tell a buddy at work all the time. It's like, dude, I want to make sure you understand how much I respect you. Because when we talk about a conversation, you do not just let me have the win. You actually come back with something. And it's actually helped me out learning more about my animals. I think some bearded dragons don't change their gender. Like some people say. I think they actually have a

tragedy when they're younger. They go through trauma or calcium deficiency. Because you'll always see them with lip issues if they think they have the sex change. And so I do that because it makes me feel good to grow because that's how I was raised.

Whereas most people have the review process where you're in the group. You're in your group of people as you grow up and you want to stay with that group. So you want to be the popular one of that group. So, yeah, it hurts the hobby, but it is 100% about the people. I want to be the man. I've had people, when I take my dragons out, they go, oh, that's just a bearded dragon. Yeah, they're freaking awesome.

And it's just, oh, it's just a beardy yeah i had savannah monitors and iguanas so what does that take away from my beardy but that person wants to fit in with their click and they want to be the hierarchy of their click because it makes them feel good that's and these are the psychology things that maybe we ought to be looking at maybe in this hobby we need to look at psychology and we're going to get into something deep here something deep here i mean there's there is definitely a lot of a lot of those psych psychoses thatoses that are present in the hobby for sure. And I think, you know, if all you're looking for, though, is a good experience, I mean, working with live animals deals out a lot of bad experiences, too. You know, you have clutches that don't work or an egg-bound female or one of your animals dies or things like that.

And so if that's what's driving it, it's not going to drive very far, right? Because you're going to have, I mean, I know I was listening to Eric and Owen on Morelia Python Radio and they were talking about, you know, kind of the highs and lows, you know, they were talking about the breeding season and, you know, you have these great highs, but you also have very low lows and and things kind of kind of go crazy sometimes so um and i i i think i mean at least personally i shy away from those kind of things if somebody's all in it for just themselves then i'm like yeah i may not associate with that that person you know or yeah so you listen to that guy's wording who said they were just beardies

he said he had iguanas he said he had savannah monitors he doesn't have yeah he had and we all know that you get into this hobby i told the lady the other day she goes oh well can i you know should i introduce my daughter's friends to my beardy for her birthday and it's like well i thought she was talking about like taking it out for a show she's like no they were going to come over and stuff i'm like well now it's a wholly different problem because the odds are by the time you get to november where you're saying your daughter's birthday is you're probably going to have like a dozen animals because you, because you enjoy it so much. So now it's a whole different story,

but yet you listen back. That guy said he didn't have them anymore because like you just said, it's not lasting for me. It's lasting. I can't, I can't think of not going without a skinking my dragons. I've passed on dragons before, but my grandfather said it best. When he talked about kids, I wouldn't take a million dollars for any of my kids, but I wouldn't give a nickel for another one.

It's like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It's such an interesting viewpoint. And to think about who we should be kind of looking up to, there was a gentleman who stopped me. I take my dragons to Cabela's once in a while. And you'll see the fish actually take interest in the dragons. It's quite fascinating to see because these fish must be thinking about mentally.

And so it's probably pretty good for their mental stability. And my dragons get a big kick out of the actual stuffed animals. They actually do. They pop up out of the place. Calm Fancy gets so overwhelmed, but he'll pop up and look at the things. Their mental health is super important to me.

Super important. I've studied a ton of things when it comes to neuroscience and stuff. There was a gentleman who stopped me. He's like, oh my god, that's so cool that you got your beardies out. Well, I used to own Savannah monitors. Man, I was like, I told him, I said, dude, you know, because I just got me two.

And like it spent me all day trying to figure out if I should buy them or not. And I got such a great deal that I really couldn't pass up. I talked to a rescue. Like I was like, talk me in or out of this. And they actually talked me into it. That's how, that's how important I am to some of this stuff around this area is that when you have a rescue talking you into a Savannah monitor,

you might not be a bad keeper it's it's it was interesting so this guy is i'm like so you know that you can't feed them rats you know you can't do this he goes yeah i figured that out i actually drunk bottom and i bought like two like i did once and i did it again so what i did is i stopped drinking completely i'm like dude i am so proud of you that that right there there is so much respect right there even though you made a mistake you didn't just stop there well i apologize for making a mistake i'm sorry no you made a corrective action to prevent you from doing it again and to me that's just amazing though exactly like it's like that guy has my respect i told him about your podcast so hopefully he's listened hit me up man he said he's

got a savannah monitor and i would love to make a table out of it like i'm with the with the things and make a like a poly table i use a smooth on as I do, some of the issues that might come up. I think I spooked Ed from Ed and Emily from Snake Discovery because I am serious about showing support to the supporters. Because people don't understand that because I fully understand what it's like to not be supported. My whole time through college, my father's like, hey, you know, what are you? Are you sure you're going to get a job? Are you sure you're going to get a job? You think you're better than us now? It's like, no, I'm too busy to actually put that into the universe.

I don't have time to think like that. And so I actually spooked Ed a little bit, I think, because I wanted to make sure he understood that I respected him for the support that he showed Emily in her dream. Because originally it was her dream. I'm sure it's his dream now. But you can possibly see how somebody achieving success could potentially make somebody else feel alienated. Because it's not necessarily their success and it's like but yet and the actual training of the animals can actually teach us this because i i never tell people to go negative on their animals you're not going to get anywhere you have to do positive reinforcement to train and i teach that like worm training for the dragons and everything,

the pot. And that's the same thing for people. And these are things we need to recognize. And if we're talking about, okay, so, so we need to push positivity here. We need to push people to think that they are being respected by others and like that and

i think that's actually something ed and emily achieve is showing new keepers that might feel like they're not good enough i can't tell you like you know how toxic facebook is and so for them to go out here and show so much support to the new keepers, even if the new keepers, they don't judge them if they mess up. We can't be doing that. I'm a full supporter of new keepers experimenting. Taking a spot here because I have a video on lighting because my landlord had this big thing. So I made a reptile lighting versus landlord video. And so this is where you start. This is where you start with your lighting.

You even need to understand because it's not as simple as just placing your lighting. You need to understand all the shades and stuff that goes with it. So here's where you start and then slowly tweak it this way people feel more positive as if they have more influence over the outcome of their animal and if they see different behaviors of their animal they're going to get more positivity out of it and they're going to want to do more and be more active be more researchive and actually experiment more on the individual animal yeah so i'd go back to the um savannah monitors you know they're they're uh one of the most commonly imported animals and they're probably one of the least understood animals in in you know herpetoculture where a lot of people don't know

their behaviors in the wild their natural history their diet you know like you said a lot of people just feed them rats and mice and they'll get overweight and then they think oh this is a cool lap pet it'll just sit on my lap and it won't you know run anywhere and and so you know when they make it about themselves when they make it about themselves, when they make it about, I want something that'll sit on my lap or I want it to whatever, you're not keeping it like it needs to be kept.

It might appear to you that, oh yeah, this is a great tame pet when it's just not being supported how it needs to be supported. If you gave it the right light and the and the proper temperatures and the proper food that you're not you're not holding that thing on your lap you know you're yeah you're uh you're you're uh trying to keep up with it because they are you know high high octane animals oh my god they are so high octane yeah i love my i love my skinks more yeah i agree yeah

but you know we we definitely need to put those kind of um those those things before our own needs for sure oh yeah if we do not ink and that's the thing about importing man i mean it's so people want to narrow politics and stuff down to so narrow a viewpoint and it's like it doesn't work that way so much of this country wants us to be independent from the rest of the world no you can't do that anymore we are global you have to think globally if and it was something uh dave hoffman did in a video that was very interesting when it came to, like, savannah monitors and stuff. Oh, yeah. The West African stuff.

I mean, I took that to heart because it was very important. Yeah. I mean, he's done some really good job. He's done a great job at showing kind of the animals in their habitat, what they utilize, what their food source, what temperatures they're experiencing and things like that. And it helps grasp it a little bit. And I really think, you know, travel does that too. If you can get to the environment or the habitat where your animal comes from. I mean, I've chased bearded dragons out in central Australia and seen kind of how they behave, what they, you know, where they bask and what

they do when you get too close to them, you know, those kinds of things. So, um, you know, I, I, I was there maybe what, two weeks in, in central Australia. So, you know, I saw quite a few of them, but I wouldn't call myself an expert, you know, like on bearded dragon natural history, but you know, it, it does it, it's, uh, you know, uh, what they say picture is worth a thousand words. And I think, you know, visiting the animals in their habitat is worth, you know, and I totally agree with you guys taking that snapshot isn't right.

I heard a vet once tell people, well, bearded dragons need freaking the light over the whole enclosure it's because i've been to australia and i know how it is i'm like you're a vet don't say this i've never been to australia i can tell you you're completely wrong if i take my my dragons out for two two hour walk in the sun they're hiding from that uv in the enclosure for two days yeah well that's the thing is they're you know they're their behaviors they're actively trying to avoid the heat of the day usually you know sometimes you'll see them out when it's pretty warm and when i was there it was uh very rainy and overcast for the most part so they were out trying to get

some some additional warmth but um yeah i mean during the heat of the day very few reptiles are out yeah i bring extra shirts and stuff when i take them out that way i can cover them up once i see that they're no longer dark that they no longer get very dark and it's like okay so we've been out here in the sun for a little bit now so they're not getting as dark as they were so they're not taking in that uv as much so they're not wanting that uv so let's go ahead i think i i think when you interact with other reptile keepers and they see you taking things out like that they're they're like i mean it almost puts the animals in a in a forced position, right?

They don't have a choice of whether they're in the sun or not. They can't really go hide or those kind of things. And so you're making the calls for them. But that's probably what people are taking issue with. And I'd probably side with that. It's so interesting, interesting though looking at it as like i said earlier the only people who've actually criticized me for taking my dragons out are reptile keepers everybody there i'm that nice guy with the lizard i'm that smart guy with the lizards i'm that guy

with the lizards or look at the lizards they don't actually if it was a snake it would probably be different but it leaves people with a positive feeling afterwards and yeah i know how to carry myself to where people don't look at me because i understand the non-verbals my thumbs are always up my hands are out of my pocket my hands swing to my side i lift up i'll look you in the eyes that's sometimes a dominant thing i do that with my skinks like my emeralds i'll walk up to the window and just kind of stare at them for a minute and then you'll see them like get super super heated up just you know just super breaths and then it's like you slowly blink and by the time you open your eyes, they will have calmed down because a predator keeps their eyes on them. So you're showing them that you're not scared of them and you're not a

predator to them. And so they actually calm down. It's one way to do it. My Peter Baganskinks, a snoot, my newest one, I was introducing him to the rest to make sure that they were actually going to work together, that there wasn't going to be an issue. I don't

just put things together. That's not, no, because that's, there are lots of things that can go wrong. So I wanted to see that. We saw the reaction of the animal actually turn their back sometimes. And depending on which animal, because I have a sub-adult male. I have two adult males. Snoot is an adult male. And I have one female.

And Snoot did not want to come at Carrie, my other adult male, but he was more than happy to run over as soon as broken. My, my youngest, as soon as he turned his back, he ran over and all these things that I'm learning like this, these things bring me joy,

but I'm not a normal person. Like just because of the, who I am in my background, I don't need people to even know that still makes me feel good. Makes me feel good to have people out there going, Oh my God, this is so cool that you've got these. Like, I do feel good about that. I'm not going to lie because so many people lie to themselves. Like, no, no, I'm doing this for the animals. Well, no,

doing the right thing still makes you feel good. And you should. If you're actually like working for a rescue or something, the people that were hospice people for the animals, they were people I was talking to at the show, those people should feel amazing about themselves. And we should go that extra mile to help them feel amazing about themselves. Because just like you said, that negativity.

Like I lost Spike. I got him when I got Pitch. So he was also my first reptile. And I lost him at seven months. And I had him when he was three months. And I still bawl about it today today i have to like keep myself from thinking about it and so when we look at this we do need to take that stigma out of it and i actually think, like, I mean, we're both in agreement that this should be about the animals.

But it is still 100% about the people. I wish it wasn't. I mean, I guess if you're getting something out of it that keeps you going in the right direction, then that's a good thing. Yeah, that's what we should be pushing. And I think we – oh, yeah. I mean we're all in this because we enjoy the animals. And so if we're not enjoying them anymore – Yeah, but they don't last long.

Those guys are usually out of it pretty quick. Like I said, that guy's – I had them. I had them. I don't said that guys i i had them i had them i didn't i don't have them now i had them well really i don't know too many reptiles guys that would be like yeah i can't get another one because i lost one they'd be like damn it i'm heartbroken but i'm gonna go out and look for another one i'm gonna go i gotta have one in my life you know yeah for sure yeah that's i i don't think i'll ever uh move away from reptiles in one way or another but i can't even i think we can't even fathom it we do we do kind of change and develop and i you know i think

think back when i first started keeping them you know i was i was that kid that you know took took around my burmese python and walked around the neighborhood or something you know i was i was that kid that you know took took around my burmese python and walked around the neighborhood or something you know to to show off to the neighbors and stuff and you know it was it was definitely about me at that time and you know i am that kid i was learning yeah yeah so yeah i'm a scientist and grow and yeah i i legitimately uh snake discovery was talking about it where they they had the uh murals and they said the painter said that kids walk up and touch the snout of the painting and it's like they want to touch it because they want to see how it feels because it's it's the animal it's the way i want to touch it yeah i still i'm i'm in my 30s

i'm a scientist and i still boop the nose on my on pitch on my beard she's so used to it now everybody asks me well do they like being touched do they like being touched it's like no they don't give a shit they don't care i don't think they like it and i don't think they hate it they're just happy to be out of the house legitimately like that's not me saying oh well i think they are no pitch actually gets excited like one of the like the third or fourth time i took her to the lake her tail ringed up before she even got out of the car. She was just like, Oh my God. Yes. I'm going to go hunt some bugs and I'm going to go eat some rats and I'm going to go do this. It's like, okay, girl, you do you. I mean, it's, it's so interesting. And to

see their behaviors and their joy, Hydra gets a little bit scared and right behind my neck is his safety spot. So if he feels uncomfortable, he's going to go run there. Calm Fancy used to feel that way. Now he sits in the basket and he'll sit there for hours on end, no matter what. And I've had dogs walk up to him and i've tried to keep him away from dogs but dogs still and he still doesn't even care like anymore where he used to get overwhelmed yeah and so to me that is good for his mental health he wants out he glass serves to get out all the time in the

apartment he wants out and i can't blame him i mean you get to experience yeah they they have certain things that they get from that sunlight and and uh yes you know being in the environment stuff but yeah yeah uh we we're we're approaching our hour mark and uh well let. Let me finish up something I wanted to do. A serious talk here. Okay. Okay, so let's talk about Chandler and him getting bit by that crocodile. Okay, Chris, the gator boy, he said, well, Chandler's my friend. He's going to get these crocodiles.

Well, I've seen a lot of his videos on Florida's Wildest, and I've seen how he talks about this crocodile. And it's like, OK, so he takes the stick and he makes sure this crocodile can't jump up. He says this is the meanest thing. Chris is licensed in the state of Florida. He's probably one of the leading experts for catching nuisance alligators. So Chandler's supposed to be his friend. This kind of thing happens to me. This is why this pissed me off so badly. It's not just because he got bit.

It's because Chris shows you how to deal with this exact crocodile, this exact crocodile. And he didn't listen to a freaking he didn't do any research. It looked like on what Chris does to get this crocodile out of the water and it turns out that chris was even there and he wasn't on the video for chandler and somebody brought up the point that chandler was even given a sump pump and he wouldn't drain the water and chandler actually got in the water so this is what we're talking about this this is about him chandler i believe, like I said, I don't think that I'm dissing on him for any mental disability that he might have. I think he's got some form of ADHD. I've seen it before. That stuff often leads to a problem with self-esteem as well. I've seen it a hundred thousand times and people that have unhealthy self-esteem often are the worst people in the world. And I don't know if Chandler is that bad, but just from that one interaction, yeah, he apologized, said that he did something wrong.

To me, that's still not good enough. Because you haven't corrected anything. You've just apologized, recognizing that you've done something wrong. That's kind of what our society pushes these days, is people to push it further and further and take more risks and put themselves in dangerous situations for the cliques, you know? So here's an expert, an actual expert on that exact animal. And he's your friend.

And you don't listen to him. You don't care about his opinion. That is more insulting than anything. I have friends and I have family members. I'm like, okay, so this is, this is, this, Oh, well that's terrible because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, that's, that's incorrect. I know that's what the news tells you, but I've put years of my life into studying what you're talking about. I've spent thousands of dollars to get an education and I can show you. I don't

just tell you, I can show you, but what you're still going to come back at me and tell me, no, we can have a difference of opinion. No, we can't. I'm your son. I'm your best friend. Who's never actually lied to you. I'm the guy that tells you when you're messing up because I love you. You're my friend. And yet you tell me that you know a subject that you've never studied, that I have spent money studying. You're telling me you know more about it than I do.

How dare you? That's super insulting. So how should we as a hobby deal with Chandler? Because that is beyond bad. So for me... Well, I mean, if his friend was there on site, why didn't he stop him? That was kind of partially on him too if he stop him? That's what I'm wondering, too. That was partially on him, too, if he's letting him interact with his animals.

He wasn't in Chandler's video, so I wonder if he kind of protested it a little bit. Like, I don't want to be associated with this. What? Things that we need to understand. I watched Cinnamon Therapy, and he goes over different different uh movies and actually applies therapy he's an actual family therapist so this guy knows more about the subject than i do and he was talking about family therapy with thor and he's like people behave their best when they feel unconditionally loved is that approach that we should take with Chandler right now?

This is an interesting point. What I would like to see is for him to actually sit down with Chris and tell Chris personally that he is sorry. This is the mistakes I made. This is what I should have done. This is how I'm correcting it in

the future. And I absolutely want you to help me with these crocodiles because i see where chandler put them and it's it's actually pretty nice and he says that's a temporary thing and so i would love to see the alligator the crocodile stay there but the odds are that he's going to lose his license from this and get these crocodiles killed because he was just terrible. And so what I think what this would do if he actually sat down with Chris and did this is actually push that narrative that we need to work together with the experts. We no longer need to say experts. And that's the thing.

Like I said, I've already surpassed most 20-year keepers. When we talk about driving, you can be driving for 20 years and still not be a good driver because you're so – I've already done this for 20 years. You're not focused anymore. You think you're above it. When it's like, no, you're not focused anymore. You think you're above it. When it's like, no, you need to focus. And this is something that does happen in the reptile community. And how many times I have to hear

one-offs, one-offs, one-offs. The old lady that's supposed to be one of the best bearded dragon keepers, well, the bee's toxic. Because this one dragon bee's toxic. Because this one dragon died from toxic. What is his

Ryan McVeigh McVeigh I met him. I love that guy. I actually enjoyed the talk that I had with him. He's great. Yeah.

But he said that night that night what was it? Red wigglers are toxic for reptiles. And it's like,

well, no, I've fed red wigglers to my dragons before and they're fine. And so I looked it up and this is something that we need to understand.

The human brain memory wise when you look at a memory, it changes. So you're always lying to yourself every time you look at a memory. So to him, he might have actually made that mistake that all reptiles are toxic to him, when that's not necessarily true true but yet it's still probably not worth the risk but yet there's still some things there like it's so important to understand that yeah and so this is this whole hobby is actually about the people and the more we understand that the more we can help people so what i would like i said i would love to see chandler do this until chandler does this i think as a community we should ostracize him

because he showed us that he cannot be trusted he put the crocodile's life in danger he put his friend's life in danger he put his own life in danger for nothing. Nothing. Like there was nothing that came out of that. Well, people are like, well, it shows you what not to do. That's not actually helpful. I think he made a lot of money. Got a lot of clicks.

He's probably much wealthier now. That's not helpful to the hobby at all. So we get him. That's what I'm saying. I don't think he cares that much. He's at all. So we get him. That's what I'm saying. I don't think he cares that much. He's making money, so what does it matter, right? Yeah. But if he really cares about these animals and wants to help other people care about these animals,

and I guarantee you Chris wouldn't have a problem with this because he does talk about the behaviors of people. He does talk about the animals in this way. I think he would actually appreciate this. I think he would go, hey, you want to come here? Let's talk about this. Let's talk about what we should have done. Let's talk about how we can fix this in the future. How do we take this further?

How do I help you to not lose these? Because Chandler, if he has the ADHD that I think he's got, I don't think he's ever going to be great enough to truly do this on his own. He's always going to need help. And nobody should ever look down on him for that ever. Nobody should ever look down on him for that because it's hard to ask for help. And I think if he's willing to do it as a community we should be a hundred percent behind him but until he shows that

i think we should ostracize him yeah i mean and his friends should show him unconditional love he should feel something from somewhere because if you completely ostracize him it just sends him more into a depression and he's not going to take care of the animals that he has now better i mean it's just and hopefully he's not making that mistake twice and yeah and imagine his adhd or something that he might have how much these animals have actually helped him and yeah i mean he's been doing it for a long time he's got a lot yeah and yet he goes off and does this so and i mean there might be people that come on and go oh well you know the your comments oh well you know you're an asshole and you you know, the, your comments, Oh, well, you know, you're an asshole. And you, you know, you don't understand Chandler. It's like, no,

I actually have a pretty deep understanding because I've hung out with people with Tourette's. My first thing, when I told my friend that had Tourette's when he wants to go talk to girls, you can't hide your Tourette's. You go over there and you make fun of yourself for your Tourette's. You go show these women that you have Tourette's. Because if you don't, then it's creepy when it comes out. If you break it down, automatically show them it's no longer creepy.

But he's not going to listen to me. And that's just the thing. He just spirals into more of a depression because he's unwilling to learn and listen. Yeah, human nature is a very complicated thing. And I'm a big fan of the Max Planck quote. A scientific idea does not triumph by convincing its opponents, making them see the light. But in the fact that the opponent eventually dies, the next generation grows up with their ideas.

I want to do nothing but show support to the children. I want them to grow up and think, this is how we should be doing this. This is a way to do this, to see this differently. Like I said, with the Venom kid, I wanted him to look at that snake. Like this is so cool that this snake actually doesn't hate me. It's in my hands. It's actually wanting to explore.

And, and I don't even own snakes. And I see that. I want to do an episode with somebody. There was a kid who walked up to me to show and we were talking about this stuff and he was, I'm like, dude, you need to holler at me. You need to hit me up. And I would love to interview you to get your take on the non-verbals of snakes because he was talking about the non-verbals of snakes. It was so awesome.

He actually gave me a really great idea. I'm a huge supporter of the kids thing. So if I took a white plastic version of the bearded dragon models, and I made hundreds of them, and took it down to St. Jude's and had the kids paint them, and put them up for auction, I would love that stuff let's let's push that these things are not wild animals i've got a video do reptiles turn on a dime no they put thought into their

universe they plan lucky didn't just run around his enclosure. He planned it out. He mapped his enclosure through play. He ran up a majestic palm I put in there for him, and he would run up to the top and jump off. I loved it. I play a game at work sometimes. It's fine lucky because he's the same color as the majestic palm. So then you get to see him run around in

there and he's literally he runs and then he stops for about 30 seconds and you can see his head moving like he's actually planning his trip and then he moves on for a minute or two minutes or whatnot and then he stops and he plans more and he does this and he's just having a blast this weekend i gotta do that for him i gotta put him in alert into an enclosure it'll be the first time they've been together and they're both males i'm not thrilled about that but i need i need the room but they've never shown any signs of aggression towards each other and they've been next to each other and i've watched over and over again they're quite two different personalities yeah it, it depends on the species, I guess.

But yeah, sometimes those males, you don't want them to rip the tail off or anything. Exactly. So we're watching. And that's the thing I want to push. And I want people to feel good about it. That's good. If anybody out there is like, dude, I can never find somebody to talk to about the positive things that I see in these animals. I see this weird thing.

Oh, the other day, my zebra skinks. I put a little cup, like what I would put in my emeralds, like a gecko dill, gecko feeder. And so I put some water in there, and I put it in the gravel. And when I pulled it out later that night, I found that they had piled rocks into it that actually leveled off to the outside rocks. And there's a lip on that. So I'm wondering if they did it on purpose, how they would have done that. But I understand how it would vibrate and become equal.

Because, you know, I actually have studied chaos theory. Oh, that's a whole other thing. I actually appreciated this. I appreciated this person on Facebook when we were talking about the bullshit that they were trying to feed us out of out of florida and somebody came on like us arc florida

says this isn't correct i'm like i was wondering because invasive species i always wonder don't don't don't tell me that i'm i i don't think about invasive species because I do, and I know it's bad, but I still think about it as chaos theory, and everything goes back to an equilibrium, but that equilibrium changes. The earthquake in Japan caused the tornado in Joplin, I believe, in 2011. Because the earth, if you stop the earth, I know most people are like oh my god like that's crazy that's insane but if you stop the earth you get thousands of miles per hour wind all at once so the earthquake in japan caused a 0.03 of a second off the earth speed like So, now you've introduced noise, like a radio station. And so that whole freaking, if you go back and look at the data, you can see that there was massive freaking tornadoes that season. That seemed completely out of place.

And then the Joplin tornado happened and then the hurricane season was fine it's like it hit that equilibrium right after the joplin tornado it was fascinating i mean so chaos theory is something that does deal with nature so i've always wondered about this but this lady's's like, well, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, invasive species. I'm like, chaos theory. Well, eventually she's like, well, chaos theory doesn't mean anything, blah, blah. I'm like, numbers would disagree with you. It's actually massively important the numbers are for the actual variables of flowers and species and stuff like that.

It's a massively important subject when you get into mathematics of it. So eventually I told this lady who I was and what I, what I've done in the past, this person, I don't know if it was a lady. I just say that. And they stopped. I actually respect that. Because they didn't just continue to argue with me. And it's like I told them straight out. I was like, okay, I don't want you to take this as I hate you. I want you to take this as you can be better. I believe in you.

I want you to do more, to be more. I want this. This is the stuff I try to put out in the universe. But sometimes it comes off creepy. Like I said, I think I got Ed a little creeped out. Well, I mean, no, I think that's a good message and probably a good place to stop. We were past our hour here. But thanks for coming on, Daniel, and we'll catch you again. Whenever I get to some of this other stuff, man, you have no idea how much I appreciate being on here.

I appreciate your podcast. I listen to you and Chuck. Like I said, I'm probably rarer than a Mackinwookie. You know? I'm definitely – I'm not boring, but I'm definitely unique. No, it's definitely been like, I may not be saying, yeah, but yeah. Well, thanks for coming on. Yeah. And thanks to Marilia.

And I think these messages are things and what you do for the hobby is important. And I, hey, going back to what I always do, I want to make sure you understand that I know that your podcast isn't the number one podcast in reptile community. But what you guys do is so important. And I have so much respect and you should have respect for yourselves. And you guys are just amazing people. And I want to make sure that you are left with a positive here because you should be 100%. I appreciate that. If I could give you a cookie and a pat on the back, I would. You've earned it.

That's nice of you to say. Because I know these things aren't just – Well, we enjoy doing it. It's a lot of fun. It's not always as rewarding. But because, yeah, I have a YouTube channel. it's a lot of fun. It's not as always as rewarding, you know? Yeah. But cause yeah, I have a YouTube channel.

I have like 56 subscribers, but yet. All right. Well, what's the, what's the name of your channel? Learning for my reptiles. Literally when I,

how can people get literally type in learning? How can people get in touch with you? I have emails learning for my reptiles, learning from my reptile. How can people get in touch with you? I have emails, learning for my reptiles, learning for my reptile products, gmail.com, Facebook, learning for my reptiles. I had a lady out of the blue holler at me from the UK. And so we weren't like on the same schedule and I still took the time.

And it's like i didn't realize she was from uk and she got a bearded dragon from like their version of craigslist and when she told me oh well it's a four by two by two i'm like no then don't even listen to me anymore you don't need my help it's like you're fine you're in the uk you actually have laws yeah uh i mean anybody that needs help um hydra i have a video on hydra because when i bought him he couldn't lift himself up and now he still doesn't even have fat pockets and he's 350 uh grams he's such a good boy he actually recognizes the term good boy. But I want to make sure that girl knows that I still support her. She is not a bad keeper. She was a young girl, early teens, and had him in a 10-gallon tank.

Got him at four months old. It took me two weeks to rehab him. I've got the video. I literally cried when he was running around his tank on all fours jumping around. And I want to make sure this girl knows that I don't judge her. I see her necessarily as a victim here. And with the money that she put into this, I could have helped her build a four-by-two-by-two. And close your form. I mean, everybody needs to keep learning. money that she put into this i could have helped her build a four by two by two yeah and close

yeah i mean that's everybody needs to keep keep learning you know we all can keep growing and she says she wanted turtles it's like hit me up i will go that extra mile to help you and i will not make you feel bad about it because i'm not that guy because if you're if you're making people feel judged then why are they going to listen to you to help the animals yeah that's true it is so you you their ideology is a shit brick house with no mortar people think that once you start pulling on one brick, you're going to tear down the whole house. So they have to protect it with their lives.

So it's actually a skill to learn. It's an art form to start pulling bricks. And that's something we need to learn. And the best way to affect people in this hobby is to not make them feel judged, possibly to actually go that extra mile and make them feel unconditional love. It doesn't matter if you screw up. I'm still going to love you no matter what. I'm going to care about you.

I'm going to show you respect. That's some great positivity. Yeah. It is. That's a good message to put out there. What's the first thing somebody wants after having a positive? More positive. Another one.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, man. Well, thanks again to Morelli Pythons Radio for housing our podcast and all the support they give. And thanks for the listeners. And we'll catch you again next week for another episode of reptile oh yes and uh good job with your wife i love the episode thanks that was a lot of fun yeah chuck said to to to send the message that he's uh ground chuck this this week

so i guess that's his outro i don't deliver the was like chuck does but all right thanks for listening we'll catch you again next week see you see y'all later Thank you. Outro Music Bye.