for World Snake Day: You have 36:1 odds for a pair of ones in the dice game of craps. Chances are probably higher that you know someone with an irrational fear of snakes. If you're lucky though, you also know someone like Mike Parmley, who passed through his fear with curiosity. Mike's journey brought him to that rare vocation of professional snake charmer, now employed by the University of Utah--built on a massive snake den--to do weekly perimeter sweeps for rattlesnakes, a protected species. He also takes calls from people and businesses needing rattlers safely removed from their property. Avoiding encounters with dangerous outcomes is important for both people and snakes.

It all started with Barley's Canine Recreation Center, the business started by Mike and his partner Heather Newport. Mike's mentor traveled the West with rattlesnake aversion training, and needed to train others so he could retire. Nine rattlesnakes, representing 3 different species, now live in state-approved space at Barley's, where they share their secrets, and scents. Snakes teach about their world, to upwards of 500 dogs and their people annually, and they've enhanced Mike's own. Rattlesnake Aversion Training

Like the enrichment opportunities Barley's offers visiting dogs, a huge terrarium in Mike and Heather's home offers a variety of challenges and puzzles for the ball python member of the family. Finding respectful ways to live on our mutual planet is a challenge we can all embrace, and a puzzle where we each have a part.

(excerpt from upcoming novel, The Scent of Distant Family)   [Jaye] focuses her gaze on the snake. A gentle convulsion, a curve of motion, catches her by surprise, stops her breath in her throat, lifts bile from her gut. What an unknowable thing, how a snake manages to move, even swim. Unknowable, how other people think.