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Originally Posted by Will0W783
@ StudentoReptile....I too have seen too many videos of people taking chances with their hots. I do handle my hognose...he hasn't bitten me yet, but I'm careful to wash my hands immediately before and maybe now I will treat him even more carefully!
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Yeah, I hope I wasn't implying that people should never handle their western hogs. I don't think they're THAT dangerous. But in light of all that...er, well, has been brought to light (lol), those of us who do keep hognose might start exercising a tad more caution when opening the tub. I'll admit back when I had my little baby hogs, I was always a little tense around them, especially around feeding time...something I never felt around my kings, or my African house snakes, or ratsnakes. Even at that point, I had seen a few photos of what a western hog could do, so while I still handled them a lot, I was a LOT more careful getting them out of the tubs, and watching where their heads were at all times, etc.
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I saw a video of a guy holding a Wagler's viper and shedding it by hand. Geez...I mean, they are insanely docile snakes usually, but any snake can get cranky when you're pulling shed off of it! I use the gloves and hooks to handle mine, even though I could probably get away with not being tagged. Why take the risk? It could be the last one you'll ever take.
I've also seen Viperkeeper (who I've met and generally like) pet his black spitting cobra in a Youtube video...that really peeved me off...it is NEVER ok to pet a cobra. He was ticking it and laughing "tickle the black beast"....IMO that shouldn't be online, because other people are going to copy it not knowing their animals and end up dead! 
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Yeah, there's some photo floating around the web right now of a green mamba drinking water from someone's hand. There's a part of us that is like, "Yeah, that's totally awesome, and bad***!" But reason has to kick in. That is playing with some
deadly fire. Regardless of how experienced and acutely-aware of the risks a person may be, and absolutely trusting of the snake involved, thats the kind of behavior that I would not allow photos or videos of, because like you said, it gets spread like wildfire on the web and somewhere, someone else is going to try to replicate it...and fail.
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