http://www.kousebandslangen.nl/

thats thamnophis' website.... lots of pet stores don't know any better....have dealt with that here. check with them and see if they know where the snake came from...lots of places can sell if they are brought in from out of state...for instance rubber boas are native here...one of the local stores was selling them, but had paperwork showing they were captive bred out of state....best thing to do is find out where they came from. those 2 look like either species...northern red siders are real dark with a row of red spots...check out website photos of the garter snake dens, lots of them have jsut a row of red spots, and some even have very little to no red. valley garters have bright red, varying from red spots to red spots and speckling above the spots..... I don't think we will be able to tell for sure without knowing where they came from....also, scale row counts might help, count the scale rows near the head and at midbody...there could be some variation within the subspecies..would have to look it up to see.....