Getting Re-used to Handling
Okay, so brief backstory: I've had Lorenzo since he was a hatchling (and I was a wee 13 y/o lol), so he's about 6 years old now. When he was younger, I was a lot better at handling him regularly and being really active in taking care of him. But then high school happened, and my mental heath took a metaphorical nosedive into a metaphorical dumpster, so I ended up being not nearly as present as I should have been.
Now that I'm doing a lot better, I want to be able to take care of him better than I have been, including getting him (and me) more used to handling. He developed a bit of a bad attitude, so for awhile now my mom has been the one taking him out to feed, with a hook and gloves, and I've just been doing all the cleaning and stuff like that. Now I'm trying to figure out how to move away from that.
I took him out by myself a week or so ago, no gloves and only a bit of assistance from the hook, and I think it went reasonably well? The only problem was that I was so nervous and not used to it that I think he was too. Plus, he's gotten A LOT bigger since the last time I held him, so I'm still trying to figure out how to handle so much snake at once! My hands aren't very big, so I feel like I'm not supporting him enough. ^^;
Any tips about being more confident/less scared of hurting him or getting hurt, and supporting him properly, would be very much appreciated.
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