Technically speaking, this is the heart of the matter. The issues you listed her mother having are severe, genetically passed, and rarely skip generations. That part would depend on how stable her father was, and if he contributed issues of his own... forget about it. The issues that were passed to her and the way she was treated would have defined the behavioral safeguards that the community is up in arms about. I notice you didn't list an addiction related to her mom, like alcoholism or the like. If her mom doesn't have that trait I'd bet her dad did. Her rapid acquisition of the snakes when she was new to the hobby points straight at addictive personality. That combined with the absent behavioral discipline are exactly why we are here in this thread and are perfectly relevant to her potentially destructive impact on this hobby. The custody situation is unfortunate and not relevant to this thread, but it is public record. Anyone on here could look up and read the minute entries from the proceedings if they wanted to, unless the records have been sealed.
Oh but one last thing I noticed - desertrat there's a good reason Ashley would have picked you out to send that PM herself to you if she wanted to - she knew you would not reply with a lashing, and would be basically fair. The rest of us are quite mad at her. You posted once or twice here. I doubt if her mother really posted she would dig into the thread far enough to FIND your post before contacting someone?
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I completely agree, and I did consider it before posting. It was very odd that it was a new account and there had been no response to me in a weeks time. The way I figured it, which ever way it was proven out would be very revealing. Either it is accurate and explains how deep the issue goes, or it is a ploy and does the same. Either way the information gleaned seemed valuable and pertinent to why she would be so careless.
It may seem that by trying to understand the deeper issues that I may be supporting her and trying to find an excuse for what she has done. I want to be clear that this is not the case. If it does turn out that she has these issues it in no way relieves her accountability for her actions. It just shows that this would have happened no matter what in one form or another, the herp community were just the unlucky recipients of the fallout.
I agree with this totally. Who knows who it really is (unless a mod can get the IP). Either way, it did serve its purpose to derail this thread a bit. Other than that PM hiccup, the thread's been pretty consistent about questioning Ashley's business practices and treatment of her animals.
Now, some of Ashley's friends got involved, when "Mom" showed up. Hannah is in a LOT of pictures posted on RTB.net posing with Ashley, Crystal, and the snakes. She was sent here, for no other reason than to defend Ashley about the Mama Drama and say the snakes are "healthy, because she's seen them". I recognize her name associated with the pictures Ashley posted.
It's OBVIOUS Hannah doesn't know an inkling about disease transmission or how viruses can lie dormant, or she wouldn't be arguing about the health of the animals. Animals/People can appear healthy, and still carry dangerous pathogens. Most normal people can distinguish between "healthy" and "sick", and "clean" and "dirty".
Ashley wants to send her friends over, perhaps we should ask one of them what happened to Phoenix. Why isn't Ashley answering those base questions? If you guys are her friends, WHY does she have to duck and dodge every question that comes her way? If she is so honest, why is she even in this mess in the first place?
She's HIDING something. Maybe even her "friends" don't know what. She sure came off as benevolent and trustworthy to Rachel W. and Elizabeth Vos, and look how Ashley treated them! They thought Ashley was a friend, too!
And those who say Ashley is "done"? Well, we can't trust what she (or Ryan) says at all. Whoever sees this thread in the future will probably never do business with these people, and that is just a fortunate few out of possibly hundreds or even thousands that deal with her OFFLINE. I don't think I'm alone when I think a person who has 20+ (many of them LARGE) reptiles is going to keep them all strictly as pets. They're either going to try and move the ones that they don't want to keep as "pets" all under the radar or continue what they are doing now, breeding them and selling them.
