Quote Originally Posted by Ginevive View Post
This is a toughie. At first, I want to say that the buyer should've researched things beforehand. But personally, when I was much younger, I had a pet iguana. I was told by the store that heat rocks were fine to use.. I used one and my iggy ended up burning onto it and dying. As I was told incorrect info (this was back around 1991..) from both books and the store, I don't feel like this was my fault.
Now, with the internet and more widespread knowledge, stores should not be giving erraneous, harmful info. I would take it on a case-by-case basis when forming my opinion on who's at fault with an animal dying from improper care. If someone comes onto this site or another good site, and refuses to follow correct advice, and the snake suffers.. that is the owner's fault 100%.
Jen--My first reptile was an Iguana, too. I was 13 when I bought him: also with a heat rock. I suspect that my iguana died of some sort of vitamin deficiency (I even brought him to the vet and they gave him vitamin E shots, but it didn't help). That was 10 years ago, and whenever I think about that iguana, I just wince to think about how uninformed I was. The pet stores and the iguana book I bought didn't really give me much information. My mother, who really didn't want me to have a reptile in the first place, felt I was responsible enough to care for it myself. I wasn't.

Iguanas are an even tougher case than something like a BP. They require a lot of specialized care conditions (UV lighting, high humidity, hot and cool spots in the cage, a variety of fruit and vegetables, enough vitamins) and they grow to be large and sometimes aggressive lizards. I don't think the pet stores emphasize this enough when someone like I was, a 13-year-old kid, comes in to buy a cute little green lizard.

I think that when it comes to younger kids purchasing reptiles (or -any- pet), that pet stores should demand parental involvement and provide adequate and up-to-date information. When one gets into his/her late teens and beyond, I think that responsibility for research into proper care falls to the customer. The internet and access to it, in addition to many websites with information are far more prevalent now than they were 10 years ago. There's no reason for someone capable of doing research about a pet to be uninformed these days.