i sold a snake now thay dont want him and want me to take him back

[waruikazi]

I've worked with thousands of kids and the ones who are moddicoddled and sheilded from making their own mistakes and suffering the consequences turn out to be little turds.

Despite the old saying 'You learn from your mistakes' you don't really. We learn from the consequenses of our mistakes.

Then I would rather be a teacher that leads from the front, displaying good morals and behaviour and compassion towards others, rather than finger waggling, financial punishment, and humiliation.

 

[waruikazi]

I'll take you on Kristy

If you think you've got enough experience, Jay, go for it

 

[Kristy_07]

If you want to start a thread, I'm happy to contribute my thoughts.

In the meantime, I think trento did the most mature thing from his end in taking the animal back without trying to "teach her a lesson". He came up with a solution that was fair, and, in my opinion, the right one.

 

[Jay84]

For anyone interested....... ''Worlds strictest parents'' on tonight at 7.30pm lol

 

[shellfisch]

A lesson in knowing right from wrong was never going to be taught by making this girl keep a python she (and her parents) clearly did not want and were unable to look after....
Arguing over whose responsibility it is to teach her morals, ethics and discipline achieves nothing.
In my opinion, taking the python back, whilst holding back a token amount to cover costs was the right thing to do.

Michelle

 

[Jay84]

Shellfish, i never actually said to 'make her keep the python'. I was in agreement to take the animal back and only refund half the buying
price.

 

[waruikazi]

I never said what should or shouldn't be done in this scenario.

A lesson in knowing right from wrong was never going to be taught by making this girl keep a python she (and her parents) clearly did not want and were unable to look after....
Arguing over whose responsibility it is to teach her morals, ethics and discipline achieves nothing.
In my opinion, taking the python back, whilst holding back a token amount to cover costs was the right thing to do.

Michelle

 

[xxMelissaxx]

I've worked with thousands of kids and the ones who are moddicoddled and sheilded from making their own mistakes and suffering the consequences turn out to be little turds.

Despite the old saying 'You learn from your mistakes' you don't really. We learn from the consequenses of our mistakes.

Agree 100%.

Positive and negative reinforcement works wonders!

 

[Kristy_07]

Agree 100%.

Positive and negative reinforcement works wonders!

The consequences in this case are that 1) the girl learns a lesson by losing her money, or 2) the girl learns a lesson by having to keep the snake that she doesn't want. Both consequences are either giving the girl something she doesn't want or taking away something she does want, for the purpose of decreasing the likelihood that she will behave irresponsibly next time, go behind her parents back again, etc.

Which means, that both these consequences, and types of learning, are forms of positive or negative PUNISHMENT, not reinforcement.

And there are many studies concluding that children, dogs, horses, birds etc are much better taught by reinforcement methods than by punishment methods. That's my theory, anyway. I think trento did the right thing.

 

[Reptilequeen]

Im with Jay, she should learn that pets are big responsibilities and that they shouldn't be bought on a whim. I dont see how "she is only 17" is a defense. Just because someone is still a kid doesn't mean they dont know what they are doing, as we all should know. If anything now is the perfect time to show that life isnt all about her and what she wants, and that if she makes a decision she must be responsible and carry it out, or go about accepted methods of fixing it, not just "i dont want it anymore, take it back and i want my money". I know that if i did something reckless like that, i wouldn't want people handling it differently just because im a kid...

she may be 17 a kid and alot do know what theyre doing but THEY DONT CARE thats the problem with alot of people they know but they just dont give a dam.They can't even look after their kids let alone a cat dog or a repltile which is more specialised.

 

[Reptilequeen]

It is not about the money at all, this buyer needs to deal with the consequences of her being deceitful,
going behind her parents back to a breeder to purchase an animal. This animal has now had to be returned to
the breeder. This has put the breeder in an awkward situation which is not fair.

Young people now have no care or worries with the ramifications of their actions...... BECAUSE, they know
that OTHER PEOPLE will pick up the pieces for them and make it all ok. Well this girl has shown a lack of respect
for not only the breeder but also her parents.

MAYBE, she would respect people more if she had to deal with the concequences of her actions?

This reminds me of the young kid in Johnny Depps movie.. Willie Wonkers chocolate factory when the spoiled girl harped on at her dad wanting the squirrel as a pet.

 

[xxMelissaxx]

The consequences in this case are that 1) the girl learns a lesson by losing her money, or 2) the girl learns a lesson by having to keep the snake that she doesn't want. Both consequences are either giving the girl something she doesn't want or taking away something she does want, for the purpose of decreasing the likelihood that she will behave irresponsibly next time, go behind her parents back again, etc.

Which means, that both these consequences, and types of learning, are forms of positive or negative PUNISHMENT, not reinforcement.

And there are many studies concluding that children, dogs, horses, birds etc are much better taught by reinforcement methods than by punishment methods. That's my theory, anyway. I think trento did the right thing.

You're right - I study Psych and should definitely be more careful with my use of terminology - apologies. This is punishment as opposed to reinforcement in technical terms, absolutely.

In response to your last sentence (we're going a bit off-topic though), reinforcement has indeed been shown to be more effective than punishment in many cases, but if you take a look, the results amongst children and animal subjects differ from those amongst adult subjects. Regardless, punishment is more effective in this case then simply handing the money back and therefore eliminating any negative consequences of this person's actions - this is the point I was getting at, so I won't turn this into a debate on Psychological research.

"2) the girl learns a lesson by having to keep the snake that she doesn't want."

^ The seller in no way was going to force her to keep the snake - her parents wouldn't let her have it in the house, so she'd lose some of her money, hopefully learn some sort of lesson, and the snake would be returned. This is what I would be aiming for, but this is subjective and up to each individual seller to decide the course of action that they are satisfied with.

 

[kupper]

And now we can join this thread with the Indian parm squirrel thread :lol:

 

[waruikazi]

From your response i can see that you don't quite have a grasp of negative reinforcement. It is actually much more complicated than positive reinforcement and not uncommon for people to 'get' if you want me to elaborate PM me and i'll send you some links and names of researchers to look up.

The consequences in this case are that 1) the girl learns a lesson by losing her money, or 2) the girl learns a lesson by having to keep the snake that she doesn't want. Both consequences are either giving the girl something she doesn't want or taking away something she does want, for the purpose of decreasing the likelihood that she will behave irresponsibly next time, go behind her parents back again, etc.

Which means, that both these consequences, and types of learning, are forms of positive or negative PUNISHMENT, not reinforcement.

And there are many studies concluding that children, dogs, horses, birds etc are much better taught by reinforcement methods than by punishment methods. That's my theory, anyway. I think trento did the right thing.

 

[zulu]

The snake should have been entered into the record book under the terms of the license,if you then add one on or say one has died your a criminal by DECC standards,ime used to it as i live in MT Druitt but those like Fayse are soft juicy targets,theyll tie the dogs up,park the helicopter on the front lawn and kick the door down!

 

[Kristy_07]

From your response i can see that you don't quite have a grasp of negative reinforcement. It is actually much more complicated than positive reinforcement and not uncommon for people to 'get' if you want me to elaborate PM me and i'll send you some links and names of researchers to look up.

Thanks for that fairly pretentious response, Gordo. Having studied both animal behaviour/captive animal management and half a Psych degree, I'm pretty familiar with the positive/negative reinforcement/punishment - I'm not sure what you have misconstrued from my post. In fact, I didn't even mention negative reinforcement in my post.

 

[waruikazi]

I didn't write that response being pretentious. I'm not sure how you have come away feeling like that.

I misread your post, i thought you said negative reinforcement is the same as punishment. My mistake.

Thanks for that fairly pretentious response, Gordo. Having studied both animal behaviour/captive animal management and half a Psych degree, I'm pretty familiar with the positive/negative reinforcement/punishment - I'm not sure what you have misconstrued from my post. In fact, I didn't even mention negative reinforcement in my post.

I'll ad that i still think you are wrong but.

 

[1dragonett]

I think that a decent breeder should always take back an animal that cannot be looked after by its owner for whatever reason. This goes for any critter breeder - reptile, dog, bird, etc. That said, breeders should vet their buyers carefully anyway before any sales. Otherwise, you're simply a BYB.

Well done on taking it back.

 

[LadyJ]

Well, good work and for what it's worth I really think you did do the right thing.
Hope this doesn't ruin too many people's views here of teens in the hobby... being one myself... I'd like to think I'm a lot more responsible than the girl you dealt with.

 

[The Reptile Outlet]

i sold him yesterday and got the phone call about 4 today i thiink he would be looked after as she has bearded dragons .id like to do the right thing by everone but i dont realy want to take him back

Tricky situation trento..... Apart from whether or not to give her the money back, that's your decision, but my main concern would definitely be to quarantine the animal once it came back. Once an animal is out of your home, you have no idea who or what it's been in contact with......
I hope you have quarantined him away from the rest of your animals.
I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but if that was us,,,,, there is no way an animal would come back to us and just go back into the collection to be sold again .... It would go into quarantine for the next twelve months, during which time it wouldn't be able to be sold, just to be on the safe side (we wouldn't risk our collection or reputation) .... therefore out of pocket for the next 12 months if you've refunded all the money ..... so hmmmmmm, tricky situation.
That's just what I would do, but that's because we are pedantic about quarantine with our collections.