I think that it is definitely a matter that the employees weren't trained properly. While it's a nice thought and would certainly make things much easier, employees can't expect to know everything about every animal and have to go off of what other people tell them.
I know for a fact that there's no way my parents would have gone for the idea of buying a turtle if they had known how big it would get/what it needs to live. Even now my mom doesn't completely understand why I want such a big set-up (until I pointed out that it's like expecting our dog to live in her cage 24/7 even though she needs the room to run around)
