Is this an answer to a prayer????

God works in mysterious ways...

I don't even know where to begin.

Around 12:45 pm I got a knock on my front door to see two police officers. They told me they were looking for Brian McDonald. I thought, "Oh great what traffic violation did he commit this time...did he run a red light, miss a stop sign?" Then they told me they had a search warrant and the animal authorities were here to take any snake over 6ft, the caiman and the spiders.

So, we let them in and they did a search of our whole house which just happened to be a disaster (We told them if they would have told us they were coming we would have cleaned up a little). I will have you know that we have been keeping our house clean these days...so the disaster was not a normal occurrence. They checked every room, cupboards, drawers, etc...like we would keep our animals in there!

They took pictures of everything and then started loading up the animals. In total they took 6 snakes, 2 spiders, a rabbit and our caiman.One of the snakes was pregnant and was just 3 inches over the 6ft rule. It would have been really nice to keep her since who knows what kind of care she will receive wherever she is going. The caiman was 12.25" which was just barely over the 12" rule. And the spiders...man are they a real threat to the city...I am pretty sure I have some in my crawl space...for some reason they didn't confiscate those ones?

They were here for a couple of hours documenting and confiscating. The best was when they brought up two of the bigger snakes in Tupperware containers without duct tape on the lids and set them in the living room right next to my 3 month old baby sleeping in the swing!!!!

Now that they are gone I have a serious headache and I feel totally emotionally drained. I feel violated and betrayed. Not that I really loved those animals but to have someone (actually 6 people) come into your home and take something that is yours is very...I don't know...weird. The animal authorities posed as a couple wanting to buy a snake but really they were checking everything out and gathering evidence. For all I know they are reading my blog as well. :) It is a violating feeling.

If we had known there was a city ordinance we would have given the animals to a sanctuary or somewhere else that day. We just had no idea. Some of the animals came to us from abused homes or people who couldn't care for them. When they were here they were well cared for and now who knows what is going to happen to them.

So yeah...talk about a crazy and draining afternoon. I don't even know how I feel...in shock, sad about the spiders and caiman and the pregnant snake being taken, betrayed, disbelief, angry (what a waste of taxpayers money!), kinda relieved my house is so empty, loss, worried, happy?

I just worry that the animals won't be taken care of properly.

I am doing a preschool lesson on snakes and alligators....and now the main event is gone.

It makes me wonder what else these people know about us....maybe I should make my blog private. :)

Did I mention Brian has 5 civil infractions and has to go to court....

One was for a snake that was sick when we got him and we were trying to get him better but supposedly if you don't take your animals to the vet you get in trouble. We didn't have him that long and we were giving him care...it's not like he was neglected!

 The babysitters...

they were actually really nice

This is all so crazy. I guess now I will have a cool truth for "2 truths and a lie"....I have always hated that game because I could never think of anything cool to say.

 

I wonder what our neighbors thought?

Tonight we got some goldfish and fed them to the pirhana. Matt, all concerned ran up to Brian and said, "But Dad the alligator is hungry too!" It was so sad to hear his little voice and have no idea that the alligator was confiscated. It made me cry.

As I have had some time to reflect on today, my brain still feels fried, and I feel like the hardest part is being deceived. When those people came over to "buy" a snake they could have said, "Hey did you know its illegal to have snakes over 6ft long?" We would have said, "No" and then would have donated them or given them to pet shops or people who can have snakes that big in their city. It is pretty lame so much time and enegy was put into such a silly undercover sting operation for threatening people such as us. Seriously...go catch some drug dealers, rapists or bank robbers! Makes you wonder who you can trust.

Since it is illegal to have a spider in Westminster we are thinking we should call them back and have them come get our "pet" spider that lives on the swing set or maybe the one in the corner in my living room!

 

Brian has been a pretty good sport about everything.  He liked his snakes but was feeling overwhelmed and was in the process of selling most of them.  We were both bummed because they confiscated about $2,000-$2,500 worth of animals. Now Brian has a bunch of big empty cages that he needs to sell but is afraid to because they might bust him again for "running a business" from home with out a license and avoiding sales and use tax (two of the other citations he got for trying to sell his snakes on Craigs List). 

Now that the dust is settled a bit, this really may be a blessing in disguise.  Brian has been wanting to downsize so he can focus more on work and making money but did not want to just give the snakes away because we could sell them which takes a little time.  I supposed the moral of the story is 

"Be careful what you pray for because you just might actually get it"