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“And they do spit blood from their eyes. I picked one up once and it scared me to death”
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Yeah, they really do. I’ve seen it aimed at one of our dogs.
They only use this defense to confuse and frighten a predator as a last resort.
The blood is harmless but it’s mixed with some kind of chemical to taste very bad to anything that tries to eat it.
My mother always told us if they spit blood in your eyes that you’d go blind. (shades of A Christmas Story and the BB gun- LOL) She just told us that ‘cause she didn’t want us messing with them.
We’d pick them up and hold them away from us for a bit to let it relax.
They’re really quite docile. If you turn them over in your hand and rub their tummy, they’ll go to sleep. They get used to you quite rapidly.
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Yes. I’ve done that tummy rubbing thing too. I don’t remember what I was doing to the poor thing when it spit blood.