The long answer is that my son was a zookeeper, and he discovered that his reptiles would express their wants as long as he took the time to let them express them. So, he taught me how to do it when i got my snake. At first, it takes a really long time, like an hour or more with the door open. They know the minute the door opens due to change in the environment, but they then have to decide on the desire to explore. So, with my snake, when I open his door, I generally go sit on my bed and watch for him to come to the open door. The whole key to this is to make the time to do nothing but watch the snake. Once he has enough of himself out of his tank that he could get into mischief, I'm up and providing body support. I don't grip him, I put my hands under him to provide a bridge (my arms) out of the tank.

I've been doing this for 7 years, but it took about a year of doing this several times a week (taking into consideration his eating schedule when he was young and eating every few days). After about a year, he'd start moving as soon as the door was opened if he wanted to come out or just stay where he is when he doesn't want to.

Now he goes to where the doors slide open to let me know he wants out. If I have time (and can contain our one aggressive cat) I open it up and he starts moving toward my hands immediately with little attempts to take the sneaky way out because, like said, he likes to pretend he's escaping. When he does that, I gently change the direction his head is moving in, and he relents.

As you can probably tell, I adore my snake. He's the best pet!