PetSmart & other Pet Store Rants

[Germ]

They don't chirp because it is very rare that you will find adult crix at Petsmart & are usually gobbled up prior to becoming adults.

 

[redsided]

The petsmart's and petco's here me off every time I go, none of the animals are cared for even remotely well, the monitors have mouth diseases, the snakes have mites.. The water dragon had some crap goin on where he couldnt open his mouth, therefore couldnt eat, and was obviously starving. There were 2 dead anoles last time I was there.. I've called it in several times, they don't do anything. I don't buy anything from them anymore, they overprice everything anyway.

Moderated

 

[ThDude]

i applied for a job a petsmart the other day. i want the job cuz i would be working with the reptiles, fish and small animals.

 

[Toasty]

So, I ended up going into a Petsmart for the first time in at least a year the other day. Not to buy anything obviously, but because I was running errands with my mom and the store she needed to go into a store that was right next to Petsmart and it wasn't one I wanted to go into lol so I figured I'd take a look around the Petsmart. I own pet rats and have for years, I was actually heavily involved in small animal rescue for several years and many of the animals I ended up taking in or fostering were rats. I went over to the small animal section to take a look at the rats and noticed one male that was obviously sick. I requested someone to assist me in the small animal section but the "specialist" was busy somewhere else so the employee that came to help me was completely unfamiliar with rats. I asked to hold the rat, and after doing a quick inspection, I informed her that he was showing symptoms of being in the early stages of a URI which can be very serious and must be treated with antibiotics. She paged the "specialist" again but after waiting for almost 10 minutes, she finally just said she'd go ahead and put him in iso in the back. Many Petsmarts have Banfield clinics attached and I asked if this one did. The employee looked at me and said that they didn't but that "he would be receive any needed treatment". I actually hadn't meant to imply to her that he wouldn't (even though I knew he probably wouldn't), but she seemed pretty offended. I'm not naive though, I can pretty guarantee what will be done. He'll be put in an isolation tank in the back and the small animal "specialist" will use the antibiotics they have on hand if she decides that he is actually sick. The problem is that a vet is really needed to decide which antibiotic is appropriate, what concentration and dosage should be given, etc. But I digress.

Ended up spending about 20 minutes helping a lady who was wanting to buy a new cage for her guinea pig and was trying to get advice from the small animal "specialist" (who apparently had time to help her) but the lady was just given a blank look after every question she asked. So I stepped over and asked the lady "oh, what kind of animal are you shopping for?", and she told me a guinea pig and that she was trying to decide on a cage. She asked me if I had any experience with gpigs (which I do), and when I said yes she asked for my advice. As soon as I started talking she knew that I knew what I was talking about and the "specialist" just walked away lol. After deciding on a cage, she asked me a bunch of other questions regarding food, toys, chews, etc.

As I was leaving the small animal section, I passed the racks with the caresheets they have for all the animals they carry. I grabbed the rat caresheet on a whim, just out of curiousity of how much innacurate information it contained. Didn't read it until yesterday and even though I was expecting it to be bad, I was still shocked by the info it contained. Some of the info was incorrect but wouldn't really have any adverse affect on the care of the rat, but some of the recommendations were ones that could very likely be dangerous or harmful. I think my favorite line was under the housing info that stated "It's best to house same gender pairs together to prevent aggression". MFW I read that lol. A male and female housed together are going to be too busy mating to be aggressive, and even then, males and females almost always get along quite well. I agree about housing same genders together, but that is to prevent breeding, I'd thought that would be pretty obvious.

So I decided to send an email to corporate expressing my concerns and listing the innacurate information the caresheet contained and suggest how it could be corrected and improved. I didn't expect them to actually care and do anything about it, but it would've at least made me feel better that I'd done something. I was unable to find an email address, so I called the corporate office to either get the email address of the person I needed to contact or maybe even get their phone extension. Surprisingly, I was connected to a real, live person fairly quickly lol. I explained why I was calling and to my shock, he actually seemed interested in listening to what I had to say. He didn't really have a specific person or department to transfer me to, but he spent at least 20 minutes asking me about my concerns (which he seemed genuinely interested in), getting specific info, and writing up a detailed report of everything I said which he then submitted to...somewhere and I should be getting a call from someone in corporate in the next 3 days and he told me that they would want to talk to me at length about it. I don't know if anything will end up coming of this, but I will admit that Petsmart just earned quite a few bonus points from me for the way they're handling this.

 

[Aleena]

The way that their corporate hq is handling matters not the store, anyhow.

 

[Toasty]

From my experience of working as an assistant manager at Petco several years ago, corporate mandates the way the stores are run, down to the exact care that is provided to the animals. I've found that if you have an issue with a particular store, complaining/expressing your concerns to the store manager isn't very effective as far as getting changes made. Contacting corporate is much more likely to result in actual action being taken.

 

[Aleena]

Unless the issues are that the staff is not very knowledgeable at all. That comes down to hiring, and to be hired at a place like that, they like you to be somewhat knowledgeable in your area.

 

[Toasty]

I haven't found that to be true in my experience. I know many people that work at Petco and Petsmart and although they will designate certain employees as the "small animal expert" or "reptile expert", it is very rarely based on them being truly knowledgeable about that particular department. There are definitely pet store employees that DO know their stuff, I personally know some of them, but that is more of an exception.

 

[Aleena]

That's just sad.

 

[Asia Lorraine]

I hate seeing this. I work at a Petsmart and they do take very good care of our reptiles and our Petcare manager is very smart and has a ton of personal experiance and has done tons of research on her own but I have been in other stores and in different chains stores and see that its not always the case. I am very lucky that I work at a dependable store with a lady in charge that actually cares. She is feirce when is does come to the care of our pets. Unfortunatly not every store has a resource like her. It makes me really sad that this happened. :-(

 

[ThDude]

so i have an interview soon with petsmart. i hope it goes well, i think i know more about the reptiles then the people working in that department.

 

[ThDude]

got an interview with them today at 1PM wish me luck maybe i can help make it a better place haha

 

[bouncer36]

good luck i hope it goes well

 

[Pat B]

make sure to let us know if u are going to be a "reptile specialist"....

 

[ThDude]

no word as to them hiring me or not, the interview went on for 45mins and i had to show what i new about all their animals.

they want me to work with the reptiles and other small animals(if im hired of corse) and also the cash register. this is not normal for them as they normally just have someone doing one or the other im told.

 

[Jaime]

I was so sad yesterday, I know pet store employees do what they know and what they can, and im sure pet stores for the most part dont actually "care" about the animals, not to be mean, just to run the business, money doesnt grow on trees and it takes all kinds of jobs to make the world go round, totally understand this from an adult prospective...but there was an absolutely gorgeous baby beardie in the store yesterday, the last one left in the tank, beautiful orange coloration and big to boot...I first saw him laying on the bottom of the viv with very little dried up veggie matter left in the dish with hard dried out poops sitting along with the veggies. The baby beardie lookedlike he was sleeping, i tapped on the glass, it peaked a bit but didnt open its eyes, reletively unresponsive...last night I want back for some fish stuff..the baby hadnt moved, was still in the same exact spot, same postion with the same dried up food and poop in the dish. I tapped on the glass again, this time it wouldnt open its eyes. It was breathing faintly but it just didnt seem like it was going to be a good outcome...I felt so bad and wished I could take him home, but i dont have the money or the space for another beardie...I told the employee in the area, they didnt care. I guess I can just say thank goodness Draco is home with me happy and healthy and he didnt have to go through the same thing that that little guy had to go through. I dont know if it lived or not, im guessing it didnt or wont by how it looked, It makes me sad to know that unique pretty beardie baby might never get a home he deserves :'( just heartbreaking. Sometimes I think id love to work at a petstore so that I could help future pet owners by educating them the best I could and providing the animals with good care while they were there. Other times I dont think I could handle all the death those places probably see...Guess its a 50/50 :/

 

[thorn]

Wow you guys have some crappy stores around. Here where I live they cages for the most part kept very clean granted some of the tanks are not at the right temp or humidity (off by 10% at most) but most the reptiles have nice bright eyes look at everyone that walks by and look to be fed well for the most part. But I will say that some of the people that work there are reptile breeders as a hobby.

 

[Pat B]

You should fire of a nasty email to their corporate headquarters. That kind of treatment borders on abuse and neglect....so sad! Maybe if we all started to flood these petstores with complaints something might happen!!!!

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Pat B]

Wow you guys have some crappy stores around. Here where I live they cages for the most part kept very clean granted some of the tanks are not at the right temp or humidity (off by 10% at most) but most the reptiles have nice bright eyes look at everyone that walks by and look to be fed well for the most part. But I will say that some of the people that work there are reptile breeders as a hobby.

And you live where??

 

[thorn]

Saint Louis mo