Why Don't People Know How To Do Research? *bit of a rant*

Questions are one thing... everyone asks questions and everyone makes mistakes. It happens, nothing to worry about. I'm certainly not above asking questions that I can't answer myself with a quick look around the wonderful lifesaver that is Google.

But what spurred this on are a couple threads from a different site I frequent (non-herp). People going on this place and asking for advice, but not taking it if it'll cost them too much money or if they think it's too much effort, and then their animals suffer.

Someone recently lost their beardie after only having him for a month, said his cage was "too cold" although apparently they had 5 heat lamps lined up on the top, bathed him daily, had him on sand, and had no idea that he needed to eat anything other than crickets. Oh, and no thermostat, dimmer, or thermometers as "oh I just feel the sand to see if it's hot enough". Now, this person had been asking for advice all month and it was pretty obvious that the little guy was failing fast... sluggish, laying upside down all the time, not eating, breathing heavy... and multiple times people who are more versed in lizards than I told her exactly what needed to be done and gave her plenty of caresheets to read through. She didn't give a reason for not following their directions other than "oh, well he seems fine today". Now she wants another beardie as she claims something obviously must have been wrong before she got him. :taz:

Another person has a ksb and a corn which are both kept on sand, no thermometers, no hydrometers, no thermostats, and neither has eaten in the past 5 months. KSB has poo that "looks like rotten eggs". I urged them to get thermometers with probes and put them on aspen as I didn't know the full story when they first asked for advice, they switched the substrate and bought one thermometer. Found out the ksb's aspen is reaching levels of 100+ but the corn's got only a level of 72, which makes me think the corn has absolutely no heating element at all considering that's my apartment's ambient. I've urged them to get a thermostat over the past 2 weeks and they've still got no idea what I'm talking about even though I've linked them several times to hydrofarm and hermstat. :rage::taz::rage:

And finally an acquaintance of mine has an rtb (which she claims is a hypo jungle monster tail that she got for $100) that sheds weekly, is about 9 months old, eats one adult mouse weekly, and only 230g, which she used to cohab with another rtb and some bps. She had at one point ~11 or more, I think once she claimed she had 15-20, and all of them except the above mentioned rtb are now somehow "gone". She's changed her story several times... her parents released them because they thought they were venomous, her parents rehomed them, her parents sold them while she was on vacation... Did I mention that she had no concept of locking clips ("oh they won't move from their nice warm tank"), thermostat, and absolutely refuses to take her snakes to the vet when they're showing signs of not being okay? Oh, and you can't give her advice on what to do with her snake because you're just being mean and purposely upsetting her for no reason. :mad::rage::taz:

Of course, this is the same forum that someone had an outside kitten that was fairly obviously dying due to having gotten into poison that they refused to take to the vet but instead let suffer overnight until they found it dead in the morning. :taz::rage: I don't know if I should say "at least it's not restricted to herps" or if I should just be appalled by the lack of understanding on how to be a good pet owner.

All of these are things that are pretty easy to solve if someone just looks into the pet they're getting before they buy it. It just really frustrates me to see these animals very obviously not doing well and being limited on what I can say on a forum, so I'm not allowed to outright say that it's largely the owner's fault. Especially when several people tell them what to do to make the symptoms stop happening and they continue on without following any of the advice given anyway. Maybe it's just because I've been raised in a city of farmers where you don't really have a choice whether or not you research the livestock before you get it, you have to provide specialized equipment whether you like it or not, and so I've never been without the mentality that that sort of thinking applies to pets as well. Sad to see not everyone sees it that way.

I cant understand with the tech. today why people cant simply type into google, yahoo, or any other search engine. Its really not that hard to get the right information these days.

I don't know why people seek advice if they aren't willing to take it. And why keep an animal in the first place if you're not so inclined to do absolutely everything to keep that animal thriving in it's respective simulated environment?

Ugh. :( I hope some of these people you've mentioned have a bit of a reality check soon, before more animals die or get lost because no one will take any accountability.

People are normally inherently lazy and if the pet is going to cost more than they first thought they try to find ways around it. I totally agree that people should research the animal before they get it but we cannot controll others actions. I was unaware of alot of things when i was gifted my first BP. I hunkered down and watched hours and hours of snake bytes on youtube and i learned alot quickly. The best u can do is just keep reminding them the animal has specific needs and can possible die if he/she denies it the care it deserves. Best of luck.

This simply fuels my belief that there are many people out there who should not be allowed to keep animals at all...

Many people think they're an expert to an animal before they even get one. These types of people probably just know the animal in passing or seeing it displayed in the petstore with no further research. They say, "Oh! My set up looks exactly like the stores" without knowing heat pads need regulation or that cage/ambient temps are important too....

These types of people are so ignorant in their ways, they refuse to listen to others for help because "they have no faults".

This is just like people who get a puppy because it's cute without realizing it's going to become big and out of control without the proper training and responsible ownership.

I truly wish you luck on trying to help those people. I would send a few caresheets to the bearded dragon girl specifically. Maybe send her to a bearded dragon forum....
Clearly she's the reason it died. Hopefully she won't kill the next one, but i'm not to optimistic from what you described about her. Maybe after the next one dies, she'll get a clue......... -_________-*

I have seen it all before it is sad and heart breaking to listen to posts about this or that and to repeatedly say your temps or what ever are wrong! Only to have it fall on deaf ear. I understand the rant and would stand beside you ranting but sadly it does no good. There are some whom cannot bare responsibility for anything, let alone an animal!

I think that sometimes in our effort to be family friendly and accomodating, we hold back from telling people like it really is. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to type, "Listen to what I'm saying, you little window licker, before you kill your pet!"

The same restraint keeps me from asking how they plan to kill the next one when they show back up on the boards with a new animal.

One of my first Air Force supervisors told me that he could always fix dumb with the proper application of training, but that stupid was terminal and could never be fixed... Took me a long time to figure out that he was right.

Heh,

The problem is, if people get told it the way it is, they tend to leave before anyone can explain why and get the animal the help it needs.

We sometimes forget that, while we can see the reasoning behind the advice given, someone straight out of petsmart with a starter kit and zero experience is likely to think some of it is absurd or actually cruel.

It takes quite a lot of convincing for people to "get" that some ball pythons don't want a 5 foot enclosure and will be happier in a tupperware box. To someone with only cat, dog or rodent experience it seems actively cruel and unusual to keep it like that.

Also the fact there are many ways to keep these animals is confusing.

We recommend a very simple, basic method that will work in 99% of cases until the user gets the confidence and experience to want to try mixing things up.

But if they read how VPI keep their BP's first we seem to be contradicting some of the best keepers out there with decades of specialised knowledge.

Does any of this ramble make sense?


dr del

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Originally Posted by Bill T

People are normally inherently lazy and if the pet is going to cost more than they first thought they try to find ways around it. I totally agree that people should research the animal before they get it but we cannot controll others actions. I was unaware of alot of things when i was gifted my first BP. I hunkered down and watched hours and hours of snake bytes on youtube and i learned alot quickly. The best u can do is just keep reminding them the animal has specific needs and can possible die if he/she denies it the care it deserves. Best of luck.

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While it's always best to research before getting a pet, the difference between you and them is that you realized "oh, I kind of need to know this" and learned what you needed to know :gj: These people are asking the right questions, but doing too little too late if they do anything at all because they don't like the answers.

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Originally Posted by Slim

I think that sometimes in our effort to be family friendly and accomodating, we hold back from telling people like it really is. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to type, "Listen to what I'm saying, you little window licker, before you kill your pet!"

The same restraint keeps me from asking how they plan to kill the next one when they show back up on the boards with a new animal.

One of my first Air Force supervisors told me that he could always fix dumb with the proper application of training, but that stupid was terminal and could never be fixed... Took me a long time to figure out that he was right.

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Oddly enough, my former Navy manager at my job says the same thing about our customers, though he's referring to people who are idiots with gadgets.

All of the above people have all put "I don't want to feel like a bad pet owner please help me I really love my animal" or "I'm a good owner I swear"... and sometimes I just want to tell them no, they're not and just leave it at that. But of course that's inciting drama and I'd get smacked with a warn for it.

It's truly frustrating when you try the flies-with-honey method over the vinegar, you phrase the advise as nicely as you can, and you're met with "well how much is that going to cost me because I don't feel like spending that much" or "well my uncle's brother's dog's son-in-law said that corn snakes eat crickets so I'll believe them more than someone on the internet" GAH. This is why I refuse to work in a pet store, because while they need people who are more educated on the animals, I don't think the corporation would enjoy me beating customers over the head and calling them nitwits for refusing to get more than a kricket keeper to put a mouse in or insisting that they'll feed their BP a mealworm and everything will be fine.

People basically suck( everyone here excluded:)) how many times have you seen people self destruct . They know they need help but refuse to take it. It's like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The best we can do is make suggestions and hope they listen. Like on of my favorite quotes from a movie ( you need a license to catch a fish but any bu$& rea#&*? As@#&%? can be a father) same for pets.

Euthanize the people IMO

I wouldn't be surprised if it's because there's so much conflicting information. One site says feeding live is okay. Another says feeding live is a horrible thing and that only good owners feed f/t. One will say that paper towels are fine, another will say aspen is the only thing to use. So on and so forth.

I remember when my family first got into goats and we were trying to figure out what green stuff would be best to feed a sick goat. So, we went to google (like so many of you are claiming). We pulled up two websites. One said that oak leaves were good for goats, but poison sumac was bad. The other website said the exact opposite. Both websites had conflicting information. Finally, we gave up. Turns out that neither plant harms goats and in fact, they love to munch on the plants.

Point is, there's hundreds of breeders with their own website. Each one will have a slightly different method, some will be radically different. With this in mind, how is a person supposed to know what is "right"?

Personally, I feel it's because many people think of pets as objects and not living beings. When faced with the 'maintenance' or 'repair' costs, they figure it's easier to just junk the animal and begin again. On some level, they realize that it is a living creature, start feeling bad, and hop online to be able to tell themselves that they made the effort. In my opinion, if you're going to get/breed an animal, you are responsible for that animal and every one you produce for the animal's lifetime. Granted, this means that if any kittens (used to breed and show cats) that I sold suddenly end up in a shelter somewhere, that I will find a way to bring them to my house until a new home can be found. Luckily, I've never had to worry about my snakes with this issue but the same holds true to them. We live in a throwaway society where animals are viewed the same as a new tech toy. People can get the animal and then there are hundreds of companies out there to accessorize your new toy. This hasn't helped the mentality that animals are living, breathing creatures that have needs and if people own them, they are responsible for those needs.

As for the conflicting advice online, I've found that if you spend enough time, dig deep enough, and use some common sense (official websites and scientific trials are better than asking a question of 5 billion people on yahoo), you can get some pretty sound advice. If all else fails, emails work wonders. Don't get me wrong, I love the forums, but if I want an in-depth answer, I will contact someone I know is having success with the species in question and ask. The worst that happens is they don't respond. Most of the time they do though and I have to trust that person in the end.

After that nice rant, I think it all boils down to common sense. Many people don't have it which is why the ones that do get so frustrated.

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Originally Posted by Raptor

I wouldn't be surprised if it's because there's so much conflicting information. One site says feeding live is okay. Another says feeding live is a horrible thing and that only good owners feed f/t. One will say that paper towels are fine, another will say aspen is the only thing to use. So on and so forth.

I remember when my family first got into goats and we were trying to figure out what green stuff would be best to feed a sick goat. So, we went to google (like so many of you are claiming). We pulled up two websites. One said that oak leaves were good for goats, but poison sumac was bad. The other website said the exact opposite. Both websites had conflicting information. Finally, we gave up. Turns out that neither plant harms goats and in fact, they love to munch on the plants.

Point is, there's hundreds of breeders with their own website. Each one will have a slightly different method, some will be radically different. With this in mind, how is a person supposed to know what is "right"?

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When faced with that dilemma, I have found a good solution is to look at all the places you've researched and make sure they've all been professionally written and see what gets repeated most often. I know I saw swings of 85-95F for the hot spot and 60-90 for the cool when I was looking into temperatures, but the majority of sites said 88-90, no warmer than 95, and that's what I stuck with. If there are just wildly different answers, I'll find someone who seems knowledgeable (like for instance, a very widely renowned breeder such as BHB, LLL, etc) and ask them if my proposed set-up is okay. I might even take a peek around a forum to see what people who commonly keep these pets have to say about this or that and take their advice with a grain of salt :gj:

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Originally Posted by Slim

I think that sometimes in our effort to be family friendly and accomodating, we hold back from telling people like it really is. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to type, "Listen to what I'm saying, you little window licker, before you kill your pet!"

The same restraint keeps me from asking how they plan to kill the next one when they show back up on the boards with a new animal.

One of my first Air Force supervisors told me that he could always fix dumb with the proper application of training, but that stupid was terminal and could never be fixed... Took me a long time to figure out that he was right.

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HAHA!! Omg, I'm sorry-not to hijack the thread but I had to mention this since you said window licker...haha. My chinese water dragon had rubbed his nose pretty raw in the store before I got him. Sadly it's permanent but he's fine-my husband though has named him window licker because of it...hahaha...I'm still laughing about the visual I got when I saw your comment :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Some people are honestly beyond help. They ask for advice:
- they take the advice the wrong way
- you're telling them they're a bad owner
- they only want the sympathetic "oh I'm sure you're doing everything right, don't worry" answer

The list goes on. I really don't know why people bother to take into their hands a life they know sweet F.A about, and then aren't willing to make the effort to rectify things when it goes wrong due to their stupidity and they won't accept help purely because they get their knickers in a twist as soon as someone insinuates it could be their fault.

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Originally Posted by Raptor

With this in mind, how is a person supposed to know what is "right"?

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Gut instinct, rational disernment, and common sense. Generally things that do not look right, are not right....generally.

I think... sometimes... people will just do Stupid think... Desire to have something sometimes overpower common sense....

You guys have no Idea how much I wanna have lizard... but reading all Advices..
I know that with my living space NYC law and managable size my choices are limited to Beardie.. and Even if know a lot about they good nature.. even if they have cool morphs.. 70$ monthly food cost is way too much for me...
I lookk towards small monitors like Ackie or Timor... But with my limited space cagin will be imposible... But sometimes desire to have amimal (Especially when You looking on that little bugger on reptile show) is VERY VERY tempting....

It's sad how commonplace neglect due to ignorance or laziness is. I've been living in a home for a while where a room mate (Let's call him H) has been responsible for taking care of a couple animals, almost ALL of which have died from lack of care. He bought himself a tegu at a reptile show we all went to, and seemed genuinely excited about having the pet (and very much liked the idea of a dog tame adult, as much as I told him that it took LOTS of time). H spent the first couple of weeks trying to feed him daily, change his water and tank, and do some gentle handling. I had given H guidelines from general research on his setup, but gave him resources to figure it out on his own. Slowly and sadly I watched the enthusiasm die out, and eventually he ended up with a bone dry tank with a skeletal looking dried up dead lizard in it. Even sadder has been watching how he handled taking care of his parent's dogs. As a room mate and a person living in the house it's been MADDENING simply because he doesn't let them outside, feed them regularly, and as their health has declined they never once saw a vet. They should've been put down weeks ago, very old and their quality of life was just nauseating. One died last night from some sort of respiratory distress it seemed (lots of foam and bile came out of him when my boyfriend and I removed his body from the house, I'm no expert so it's just my best guess). The last one of the two is at the house now barking non stop and has no use of his back legs, not to mention he's down to skin and bones. I don't think he'll last much longer without the other one, they were together for 12 years.

The responsibility of a living thing really seems to escape a lot of people. They may "love" their animals, up until the work outweighs the return or it isn't fun anymore for them. Or the animal dies and they get to go out and get a brand new one to entertain themselves with for a couple weeks (It is -so hard- not to call it out on the forum sometimes). It's the most frustrating thing in the world, but generally you're only in a position to keep throwing information at them over and over and over again and just hope that something (anything!) will make it through.

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Originally Posted by Jazi

When faced with that dilemma, I have found a good solution is to look at all the places you've researched and make sure they've all been professionally written and see what gets repeated most often. I know I saw swings of 85-95F for the hot spot and 60-90 for the cool when I was looking into temperatures, but the majority of sites said 88-90, no warmer than 95, and that's what I stuck with. If there are just wildly different answers, I'll find someone who seems knowledgeable (like for instance, a very widely renowned breeder such as BHB, LLL, etc) and ask them if my proposed set-up is okay. I might even take a peek around a forum to see what people who commonly keep these pets have to say about this or that and take their advice with a grain of salt :gj:

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Bawha. How is someone supposed to know who is a "widely renowned breeder" if they're new to something? And honestly? Experience has taught me that just because someone is widely known, doesn't mean they do what is good for their animals.

My sister was given a corn snake that she doesn't feed as often as she should.. She's more into her fish. The snake was given to her by a friend who left to the army. She gets super defensive when I tell her she needs to feed him.. I told her to do research on corn snakes or rehome him... She said she'll just ask me but I don't know much about corn snakes... She's just being lazy.. Any suggestions on convincing her to rehome him?? Keep in mind she gets very defensive... Telling her she needs to find a home where someone will love him makes her feel like she doesn't care about him..

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Originally Posted by CherryPython

Some people are honestly beyond help. They ask for advice:
- they take the advice the wrong way
- you're telling them they're a bad owner
- they only want the sympathetic "oh I'm sure you're doing everything right, don't worry" answer

The list goes on. I really don't know why people bother to take into their hands a life they know sweet F.A about, and then aren't willing to make the effort to rectify things when it goes wrong due to their stupidity and they won't accept help purely because they get their knickers in a twist as soon as someone insinuates it could be their fault.

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Urrrrgh this. It's dogs, but on the same forum I was recently ripped to shreds for even daring to ask if someone's breeding dogs had been health tested or titled. Apparently that's implying that they're a backyard breeder (which they are) which implies that they shouldn't have bred their dogs (which they shouldn't have) which implies that they're bad owners and that's just mean and harsh and spam!!!!11!! =_= Oh, and it's heartless and cold to not allow animals with genetic defects to breed, so all of you with snakes that have some fairly heavy deformities and neurological issues that you're not breeding, you're apparently being cruel to this person. Ugh, it's like they're not even listening to themselves.

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I lookk towards small monitors like Ackie or Timor... But with my limited space cagin will be imposible... But sometimes desire to have amimal (Especially when You looking on that little bugger on reptile show) is VERY VERY tempting....

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I want a peach throat monitor so bad that I can hardly imagine getting another lizard... but with a tiny 1br that barely fits me, the cat, and the snake and a college schedule and budget for the next 3-4 years... that's not going to happen. Add my inexperience with lizards and well... I want to make sure that whatever animals I get don't end up like that girl's beardie.

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Bawha. How is someone supposed to know who is a "widely renowned breeder" if they're new to something? And honestly? Experience has taught me that just because someone is widely known, doesn't mean they do what is good for their animals.

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Well, after doing the first step and looking around various sites and sources and gleaning information from there, if you don't know what the bigger names are by then, you haven't looked hard enough. TSK, Constrictors Unlimited, Kingsnake, and here all came up within the first page or two of Google.

And oh I know... that's when you fall back on your common sense and gut instinct as well as following my rule of doing what gets repeated most often. Again, example is more into dogs and I might be shooting myself in the foot here with other dog-people on this site, but there's a big name ex-breeder, now dog trainer that I absolutely hate with a burning fiery passion because he's an advocate of literally hanging your dog 4ft off the ground by a choke collar until it passes out if it's handler aggressive. Obviously common sense and gut instinct would tell most people to stay as far away from this guy as possible, but he's actually got a huge business with his training techniques and was at least at one point considered the go-to guy for protection training. If it doesn't look or sound right, it probably isn't.

Some of my favorite phrases come to mind for this thread.

You can't fix stupid.

Common sense isn't very common any more.

Never get into an argument with a stupid person, they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

Stupid people shouldn't breed. Or own pets.


You know, there has been a lot of hype in recent years about Zombies, undead people who crave the brains of the living ? A lot of people seems to think a zombie apocalypse is actually possible. Me ?? I think it already happened. How else to you explain the hordes of brainless idiots running around everywhere ?

Gale