VENTURA : Children Learn About Animals, Pet Ownership

With a ball python curled over her arm, Joyce George of the Ventura County Humane Society slowly walked around the circle of fourth-grade students, giving each child a chance to pet the scaly serpent.

“Nasty!” 10-year-old Mario Calvillo said after George passed.

Despite such reactions, one purpose of George’s visit Friday to Will Rogers School was to let children get close to animals they may otherwise see only in a zoo.

Ball pythons, George warned the students, are in danger of becoming extinct because of the destruction of the rain forests they inhabit and the wanton killing of snakes in other parts of the world.

“I hope we’ll get to the point,” George said, “where we’re not killing snakes right and left. Why should we kill something just because it’s different?”

In her visits to schools around the county, George seeks both to raise students’ awareness of endangered species and to teach them about the responsibilities of pet ownership.

She uses animals to make the point. On Friday, she brought the python, a pair of small white rats, a golden retriever named Molly and a California desert tortoise.

The tortoise, like the python, is an endangered species, George told the children.

George used the rats, which remained in their carrying case during the visit, to talk about the importance of keeping cages clean.

And George’s dog, Molly, served as a perfect example of why people should spay or neuter their pets and keep them on leashes.

When Molly was brought to the Humane Society 12 years ago, her hip and leg were broken from when she was hit by a car, George said, eliciting gasps from the children. The dog had been a stray on the streets of Ventura for months, George said, “but nobody took care of her.”

To prevent other animals from becoming strays, George said, pet owners need to attach name tags and keep the animals inside or on leashes.

“As smart as Molly is,” George said, “she cannot talk. She cannot say, ‘My name is Molly George.’ ” And she cannot tell people where she lives, George said.

The only certain way to reduce the number of unwanted and stray animals, George said, is to spay and neuter pets.

The children seemed to understand, but a few had questions.

“Can fish be spayed and neutered?,” 9-year-old Lucas Milliken asked.