01/01/2020
Happy New Years! Its the 559382828 according to the reptilian calendar.
Barney's House of Reptiles
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29/12/2019
Do you recognize this man? On several occasions he has tried to abuse the store's "Pay-by-the-Inch" snake policy.
27/12/2019
IF the Queen of England was a reptile then the Redcoats WOULD have whupped our asses. But NOPE the reptiles are on OUR side.
25/12/2019
My top Reptile Films for any reptile-loving cinephile:
Hook (1991):
A slow burning horror film in the same vein as Hereditary, the director employs some brilliant misdirection. Most of the film masquerades as the story of a man rediscovering his whimsical childhood until we build to the disturbing climax: the horrific capture and torture of a BEAUTIFUL crocodile by pirates.
Snakes on a Plane (2006):
Easily mistaken for anti-reptile propaganda, a more discerning viewer will catch on to the verhooven-esque irony. The snakes in this film are clearly the only characters with any morals or values. SOAP also stands up as a cutting critique of the United States draconian anti-exotic reptile trade policies.
Anaconda (1997):
The snakes in this one are much larger than any real snake obviously. Usually I’m a stickler for biologic accuracy in depicting reptiles. I’ll let it slide here though because I found myself suspending my disbelief and just wishing I could get get some snakes of that size in the shop!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014):
A brilliant bit of fantasy. I think anyone like me who’s spent hours talking to their turtles, late into the night, has thought about how much they’d like to hear them talk back. The only fault i can find in TMNT is the lack of any female turtle in a lead role. (maybe a turtle with a little s*x appeal? a bit of eye-candy for all the guys out there?)
24/12/2019
I think a lot about what it would be like to live in the time of Dinosaurs, when reptiles ruled the earth. That's the world I belong in. I'd take a brachiosaurus as my steed and ride across the plains. I'd befriend the raptors and take a triceratops as my wife. I would be there king.
23/12/2019
One question I get all the time:
“After all these years of caring for reptiles, how have you kept all your digits!?”
Well, yes, I have 10 fingers and toes, but I’ve actually lost two digits in my 40+ years of reptile ownership. Let me explain:
I was born in a time before the OPPRESIVE federal government and its DRACONIAN regulations DESTROYED this country which love so much.
In the pastoral small town in southeastern Michigan where I was born and raised, the Dupont company opened their chemical disposal plant, generously creating great, middle-class jobs in the region. My father himself, worked as a plumber at the plant, unclogging the run off drains. (Take notes millennials! he wasn’t afraid to get dirty and never complained a day in his life!)
Along with the jobs, Dupont, out of the kindness of its heart, even more generously bestowed myselr and about 60% of my generation a few extra digits. I was always grateful for what Dupont gave me. I had a few extra fingers and toes too spare, something kids these days will not get to have because of course the GOVERNMENT came and took that all away.
22/12/2019
Dog and cat owners of South Bend be advised: Our Boa Constrictor, Monty, escaped his enclosure. Your pets may be at risk. Do not be mistaken, we will take LEGAL ACTION against you if Monty takes ill.
22/12/2019
10 years ago today the FACIST South Bend chamber of commerce embarked on a SCORCHED EARTH campaign to shutter my business, a PILLAR of this community for decades.
If the city council had headed my strong advice, that every household be provided with a proper stock of anti-venoms and anti-coagulant drugs, those children would never had died. The responsibility for these tragic deaths lays firstly on the city and secondly on the parents for not properly studying the treatment of venomous snake bites before deciding to have children. This is BAD PARENTING!
We may never know how are rivers and fountains became overrun with corral snakes, but the city's assertion that it was somehow my fault is unfounded an SLANDEROUS.
Moreover, if I had been releasing my overstock of snakes into South Bend public parks, the CONSTITUTION, would clearly protect my right do so, IF it was something I did, but it's not.
Our holiday sale is still going on. Enjoy 20% off storewide.
21/12/2019
Happy Holidays!
Tis' the season for great deals on reptiles and reptile care products.
I'm proud to announce that in the spirit of inclusion, this year, we're offering a special selection of Jewish snakes, lizards and turtles. A perfect Hannukah gift for any Jewish, reptile-fan in your life. We've gone through great lengths to ensure these pets are as jewish as possible. All have been been fed a strict kosher diet since birth, Bennella our 13 year old box tortoise recently celebrated her Bat Mitvah and my oldest friend, Alec, who is episcopalian (I've been told this is very close to being Jewish) circumcised all the males. (not an easy task to do on a western diamondback i can assure you!)
Mazel Tov!
20/12/2019
In honor of 20 years of operation and to inaugurate this page, I thought I might tell the story of how I came to love reptiles and start this shop:
I got my first reptile in the sixth grade, a garter snake I saved from my dad’s riding mower. Spotting its yellow stripes in the St. Augustine , I managed to cry out just in time for my father to throw his empty Miller Lite can and scare the little fellow out of the way. I managed to scoop him up as he gave me the first of many little snake-kisses, I little nip on the finger, I’ve received over the years. A slight pain, but much less painful than the aluminum shards which sliced my shins and calfs as my father ran over his can, rendering the blades of his prized John Deere inoperable, twisted threads (no doubt sparing many garter snakes a nasty end!).
When my father and I returned from the emergency room my mother had prepared a home for the snake in the fish tank which had sat empty and foaming with muck and algae since I had found my last goldfish belly-up. It was not two-weeks earlier, in fact, that I had given her a proper send off in the pond behind my middle school.
Not to digress too much, but I think it’s interesting how I sent her off and might add a light color to this story. For all the “millennials” on this website I should preface this by saying, that this was a time back before we coddled your generation into adulthood like babies. I was free to roam after school. If I fell and skinned my knees or cut my hand on rebar dumped at the edge of the woods by the local contractors, I didn’t cry. I rubbed dirt in it and got back on with my life. It was fun and I grew stronger for it.
Anyway, on a raft made from one of my father’s empties, retrofitted with bottle rockets, I sent goldilocks off at terminal speed across the stinking, scum with Roman candles to light the sky and signal goldilocks entrance to fishy-Valhalla.
Goldilocks was the last of maybe four or five goldfish my mother had bought me in my adolescents, trying to to teach me some personal responsibility. All these fish had met a similar end. I didn’t, and to this day, don’t have much affection for fish and would inevitably lose interest in the rituals of feeding them or cleaning the tanks filter.
With Barney though (I named this little garter snake after my favorite character, Barney Fife, from my favorite show, “The Andy Griffith Show”) I found a connection I had never felt before with an animal. It was as if a place in my heart I didn’t know existed had been filled. Oh everyone, to tell you the hours I spent staring at Barney in his enclosure, studying his movments. I look so fondly back on watching his forked-tongue periodically flick from his mouth and smell the air (snakes smell with their tongues!). I loved Barney and I know it might sound crazy to some of you, but I know that Barney loved me too. I looked into his eyes and he’d look back into mine the way you might look into the eyes of a close-friend or lover. I saw a little bit of myself in Barney and identify closely every reptile I’ve encountered since. Sometimes I wonder if I am reptile! (I’m kidding of course. I am not a reptile.)
Barney passed sometime over the next two-weeks. It was then that I knew I had to learn everything I could about snakes and reptiles. I checked out every book I could from my school’s library on the topic. I learned what they ate and what it took to take care of them. I should have been feeding Barney worms and insects instead of trying to feed him clumps of grass, I knew that now. I poured over those books religiously. I wore out their spines and renewed them in a an ever-crumbling state until I had nearly memorized every word.
My love of reptiles has never once faded. My two (human) sons, Walter and Edward, today joke that I love my reptiles more than them. My boys are a quite a handful! (even now that they’re out of the nest!) Everytime I see them, they always crack-wise about how our fridge at home was always full of mice and crickets and never any human food, and how I missed Justine’s funeral (Boys, she was MY wife!), oh just about four years ago, because I had to make it to Repticon (the FOREMOST reptile convention in the United States). Of course it’s absurd, but I do have to admit there is a little truth in there. Not that I love my reptiles more than them, of course, but it is a DIFFERENT kind of love. You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your reptiles!
Look at me rambling on, back to the story:
Fast-forwarding a bit (do you young people know what that means?) I graduated from Southwestern Michigan Community College with a degree in biology and one goal in mind: to own my own reptile store. Moving to the big city of South Bend, I found employment at Mandy’s pet store.
Mandy’s was your typical pet store: gerbils, guinea pigs, fish. Not my ideal place of employment, but it was a local institution and it gave me the opportunity to meet nearly everyone of import and prominence in the city. One time Terry Mcfadden of WNDU 16 news even came in, didn’t buy anything, but we talked about Notre Dame football for 15 or so minutes, something I’ll remember forever. At Mandy’s I felt myself I felt myself becoming a real part of this great community in SouthBend something that would serve me as I set out to start my own establishment.
Mandy Foster, the namesake of Mandy’s, was a wonderful woman to work for and I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity she gave me. After five years of diligent hard-work and dedication I was able to convince her that we should start carrying reptiles. Starting with geckos (a simple place to start winning over any reptile skeptic) I was able to slowly introduce more and more cold-blooded friends into the store’s offerings.
Now, Mandy was getting up their in age, oh about seventy-five at this time and as the saying goes, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Also, her mind had started to go a little bit at this point, to put it lightly. I was not too surprised then when, in her perpetual struggle to properly care for these wonderful creatures, she got a snake-kiss from a baby Western Diamondback and, well, I still miss Mandy, but she really should have been more careful. That beautiful Diamondback though, gosh it was cute little guy, one of the most beautiful snakes I’ve ever had the privilege of looking after. Diamondbacks are probably, in the top-five, not just most handsome snakes, but reptiles overall. Absolutely gorgeous.
I took over Mandy’s shortly after Ms. Foster’s passing. With the money I had squirreled away from working over the past five years and from breeding and selling reptiles from my modest one-bedroom apartment, I was able to purchase the building. For the next couple of years I kept the name Mandy’s (a trusted name in town!) and slowly fazed out those pets I disliked in favor of reptiles. When the time was right, there was only one name I had in mind to grace my storefront:
Here’s to you Barney!!!!!!!
The rest, as they say, is history.
20/12/2019
Me!
20/12/2019
how do i writ on faceboo
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