Toto the cat and her brother Silver live footloose and fancy-free in a townhouse in London. For fans of The Aristocats, The Secret Life of Pets, 101 Dalmatians and Atticus Claw Breaks the Law. But to dismiss their very real danger would be foolish.Meet Toto: she's no ordinary cat, and she can't wait to have an adventure with you! Join Toto for a funny animal escapade written by one of the UK's best-loved broadcasters. Reptiles can make great pets for people who can’t own a dog or a cat because of rental restrictions or work commitments. You would be surprised at the distance from which they can strike. Call the RSPCA or local reptile society as they will have people who can deal with them. So what should you do if you find a python in your bedroom? Stay back, don’t approach it and don’t antagonise it. As for a python lurking in your garden? That would be a very dangerous scenario for your dog, or your neighbour’s cat. But if a python made its way into a bedroom and grabbed a child, by the time the parents got up there, it could be too late. A bite from a cobra could be deadly, but normally you would have time to raise the alarm and locate some anti-venom. In real terms, escaped pythons can be more dangerous than the venomous snakes I care for. But anyone can own many of the large constrictor snakes (which aren’t venomous), including Burmese pythons, making them much more difficult to track, and more widespread. In 2020, it was thought that more than 500 venomous snakes were kept as licensed pets in the UK. Residential ownership of pythons is certainly an issue of growing concern among some of my peers. And even the most experienced of keepers can get caught out. It may be tempting to make light of these seemingly freak incidents – after all, how likely is it for a python to pay you an unannounced visit – but it’s important not to scoff at the risk big snakes could pose to the public. It’s hard to say how often snakes escape, and it’s true that it’s a more common phenomenon for smaller, non-venomous species such as corn snakes and rat snakes to enter ducting or pipes, or communal attic spaces in terraced houses. Some keepers find a squirt of hand sanitiser to the snake’s mouth can buy them enough time to get away, but it’s unlikely a member of the general public would have a bottle to hand at exactly the right time. But responsible ownership is crucial – if a snake of that size decides to wrap you up, there’s not going to be much you can do about it, aside from poking it in the eyes or other vulnerable areas, and hoping for the best. It’s also true that some owners, knowing how many people are scared of snakes, might not tell their neighbours about their new pet. In this case, the python in question was owned by a neighbour, but it’s not clear how it escaped. Some bigger snakes could even crack the glass of their tank and, with the summer’s balmy weather demanding windows are left open for months at a time, snakes could easily find themselves slipping out for a gander around their local neighbourhood. Many could easily push an enclosure lid open, which is why best practice is to keep them locked securely. And, without wanting to state the obvious, pythons are strong. So how does an 18ft python find its way on to your roof? Often people buy pythons as babies, when they are just a few feet in length.
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