Reptiles have always held a special place in my heart, in my late teens I set up 'Reptile's Rest' which was intended to be for rescue and rehoming, sadly my fundraising skills were not on the same level as my ambition and even with a significant amount of borrowed money from Mum and an extremely understanding exotic vet who was happy to teach me to administer medications and manage most of the common problems at home to save on fees, it was clear that it wasn't going to be sustainable. I stopped taking in any more animals and started studying for a herpetology qualification - it was a short course, just 20 credits at HE Level 1 but this led to a job with a well established reptile rescue for a few years where I got the opportunity to learn aggressive snake handling, crocodilian handling and venomous snake handling.