Seamus Haley said:
Quarantine in seperate rooms... with a connected ventilation system that would allow airborne pathenogens to travel through them? There may be a wall involved, but that's one room.
There was an element that was introduced to your collection externally that can be identified as a catalyst. Precautions that could have prevented the degree of impact could have been in place but were not- that aspect is hindsight though, your practices were not uncommon, although they certainly weren't comprehensive either. Not a lot to be done about that after the fact.
When it comes to irresponsibility though, you have espoused viewpoints and taken actions that are absolutely irresponsible, to the point where I would even say the last few were maliciously so. Just because something wasn't your fault doesn't mean you can avoid the responsibility of dealing with it appropriately.
While you ultimately made the right decisions, few of them were your first choice and each new incident came complete with it's own round of you whining and seeking pity and everyone who was trying to correct your negligent, dangerous, stupid behavior having to couch their criticisms of your actions in the center of a dozen compliments and sympathetic comments. You didn't want to put the animals down. I'm not inclined to go back and find the exact details but I believe I remember you either obtaining more or trying to sell asymptomatic ones. You tried to sell caging that was used to house afflicted animals. You still have animals that were exposed to that potentially virulent and deadly environment that haven't been euthanized as a precaution... Every step an argument, every step met with resistance.
That's why I said... it's great that you're going to compensate the people who you owe... and why I noted that it seemed to be the first ethically right decision you were able to make independantly without having to be alternately shouted at and babied into taking it.
For whatever my opinion might be worth, your constant resistance to doing the right thing has me convinced that you are far from a good person. I simply don't think you can be trusted to make the right decisions in any situation, since your every impulse with this one was so very, very wrong.
That's your answer in the last sentence, Seamus. Impulse. She is a woman, most female decisions will be made out of impulse or emotion. Very rarely do we make logical decisions unless we have been trained to think that way. What she did is natural and normal (coupled with the fact that she apparently based some of her decisions on information that we knew nothing about at the time).
Your post while blunt is also true in essence. While I do agree with you, because I am also a woman, I can understand how some females minds work (No, I am not speaking for all women, this is merely my viewpoint on how we may make decisions versus some men). It doesn't make the way some females make decisions right; it just explains the reason why she had to be talked to logically to be led to see what she needed to do....and perhaps if she could have been talked to logically without insults that put her on the defensive and blinded her to the correct path because her defenses may have been on alert, this "saga" that you speak of may not have gone on as long as it did.
Jen, since you put my name in here. Let me explain something. I also make bad decisions based on a lack of information or emotions. Whether it's my fault for not reading or what (I actually did skip some posts, so if there was some good information in it...the tone, or beginning possibly turned me off) I also know when I have made a bad decision when I get the correct information and I do correct myself instead of following though and compounding my error.
Regarding your current situation, I would have put all the animals down regardless of my feelings because:
1. While it is asserted that it is an air-borne disease..I would be cautious, because very few pathogens are air-borne only, and in my mind, I simply do not have enough information on this illness to be able to make the "correct" decisions right now.
2. Because of number 1, we can not say that someone may not come to the house who owns a snake (service men, the mailman, repairmen..all of these are potential owners) and because of my decision (made emotionally) this saga may continue. (it will anyway, because I have NOT forgotten that other animals are out there..but we are talking about THIS decision).
3. If I get get sick/something happens and my animals need to be boorded....(I don't even want to think about that one) it will be taken out of the house.
4. It could escape. People are having their animals escape everyday.
That said. My offer was made to YOU. I am sorry, but It is not transferrable. What you did with the snakes once I gave them to you would be your decision. IMO: Nothing bad has happened to them requiring assistance to help them recover even if it's not their fault that this whole situation happened. Bad business decisions are made every day in which we did not see the outcome, and this snake loss can be a tax write off if it's an actual business depending on how it's set up.
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