I think it would be nice to someday see an ongoing discussion in the reptile-keeping community about reptile hierarchy of needs.
If you have studied psychology, you have undoubtedly been introduced to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. This theory states that people have certain prioritized needs they seek to satisfy in life. The most basic needs are physiological (food, water, sleep, etc.). Once these are satisfied, the next level of needs security (safety, shelter, etc.). After this, the needs become more psychological and psychosocial. I believe animals have their own hierarchy of needs as well.
I tend to think that most reptiles probably reverse the first two levels of needs compared to humans. That is, most reptiles -especially snakes- tend to prefer security over physiological needs. I believe this is because they still reside in the "wild" where physical safety is often threatened immediately upon entering the world. They need to know they are physically safe before they will engage in behaviors like feeding, which can make them vulnerable to predators.
The reason I mention this is we often see new keepers misunderstanding the basic needs of their pets, resulting in both poor captive conditions for the animal and confusion and stress for the keeper. Some examples are as follows: Not providing hide boxes and settling in time before feeding a new pet; Inadequate feeding response due to over-handling; Inadequate feeding response due to excessive enclosure size.
Although I believe all reptiles may have the same basic hierarchy structure, some differences may be species-specific, and even then, individuals may exhibit variations within their own species. For example, some species may exhibit higher percentages of individuals who need more security than other species.
Basically, I would like to see some kind of education for reptile needs to help beginning keepers. I can't tell you how many times I feel sorrow over seeing new keepers who suppose that their snake thinks and feels about the world around them the same way the keeper does. They think their new pet "likes" being held, although it has refused meals for two months. Or they think that because their new snake tries to bite them this means it "hates" them.
People often impose or project their own communication devices onto reptiles. Reptiles have developed a different strategy for communication that we are largely unaware of. Just because a reptile doesn't try to bite a person when their head is rubbed, this does not necessarily suggest that it "likes" it. Those keepers who have had more personal experience with reptiles, and especially those who pay close attention to observing their body language, have gained the ability to perceive when a reptile is thinking aggressively, sluggishly, sick, etc.
Anyway, it's just a topic that has been on my mind at times. Most care sheets do very little to educate new keepers on the basic psychological needs of their new pet.
I just think it would be neat to see more basic education on these topics to help new keepers, and even those who have been keeping reptiles longer, but who have not taken the time to carefully observe and study their pet's needs. I don't have any ideas on how to do this, but I think it does begin with discussion. Most discussion is sparsely confined to a few comments in "help" threads. It would be nice to see some threads specifically targeted at discussing this issue, not necessarily confined to "new keeper series".
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