WORST pet store experience ever!

[MadamBelladonna]

So one of my friends told me there was a pet shop just 2 minutes away from my house. I asked her to show me where so we went down to look. I asked her if they sold rats there and she told me yes, so, naturally, I had to look.

I wish I hadn't.

They had 3 different aquariums of rats: one with "5 week old" babies (they looked like 3 weeks, if that, no mother rat), one with medium sized rats, and adults.

The babies were all so lethargic that they barely reacted to me sticking my hand in the middle of the group and pulling one out.

In the medium rat tank, there was a rat that had a huge open sore on his leg. The pet store employees shrugged when I informed them of this. Their faces were covered in porphyrin.

The adult tank was the worst.
There were only 3 rats in this tank, all of them in a pile, sleeping. Two of them were on top of a third. When I put my hand in this tank, the two scattered, revealing the third rat. At first glance, he appeared to be asleep. On closer examination, I saw that his extremities were blue, and his belly swollen. He was dead.
I took him out and brought him to the counter and handed him to an employee. :redhot:

Never going back.

 

[Moon]

Aaaannnnddd this is why we tell people to just not go in to stores that sell animals of any kind.

Sounds like a horrible place

 

[Livyaahh]

That sounds awful! Isn't it illegal to keep pet shop animals in poor conditions? The owner should be arrested, or at least fined!

 

[jorats]

OMG... that is horrible. Might be worth reporting what you saw to the SPCA.

 

[victoria]

Aaaannnnddd this is why we tell people to just not go in to stores that sell animals of any kind.

Sounds like a horrible place

Exactly.

 

[Fidget]

Do they have a website where people can post about their 'happy' experiences with the store? That one needs adding... And a call to SPCA too...
I'm so sorry you experienced that :hugs:

 

[MadamBelladonna]

It was ridiculous...AND there was a little boy next to me that wanted to look at the rats...had to hide the one that didn't make it...and his mother was standing there talking about how filthy they were. Uh, DUH, any animal would be filthy in those conditions. They pretty much used their food as BEDDING. There was a little bit of bedding in there and the rest of the floor of each aquarium was crappy lab blocks.

I have never seen any pet store in such deplorable conditions (actually it was only the mice and rats that had bad conditions-the "pet" animals-aka, not feeders-were actually pretty well off for pet store animals). Ugh, what a nightmare...

 

[MadamBelladonna]

Do they have a website where people can post about their 'happy' experiences with the store? That one needs adding... And a call to SPCA too...
I'm so sorry you experienced that :hugs:

Probably not, it's kind of a mom and pop shop...I'll look into though

 

[trihkal]

OMG... that is horrible. Might be worth reporting what you saw to the SPCA.

I totally agree. That is absolutely horrifying. Sorry you had to experience that. I can't shop at stores that sell pets anymore. Way too sad and they don't deserve my money.

 

[MadamBelladonna]

OMG... that is horrible. Might be worth reporting what you saw to the SPCA.

I totally agree. That is absolutely horrifying. Sorry you had to experience that. I can't shop at stores that sell pets anymore. Way too sad and they don't deserve my money.

There is only one that I have found that treats their animals well, even the feeders. Yes, I realize that snakes gotta eat too, but that doesn't mean that you hafta torture their food before you give it to them, and THAT place was just...no words... The store I normally go to treats their rats very well, they even get time out to play (and these are feeders, mind you-not high-dollar pets like ferrets and chinchillas, ect.). ALL of their animals have toys and clean cages, good food, and plenty of interaction time with the staff. It was kind of a shock to the system going from my nice, clean, animal-friendly store to that little hell hole...You could literally SMELL the rats from a distance, it was so nasty :sick2:

That just kinda totally made me lose faith in people...they didn't bat an eyelash when I told them about the hurt foot on one of the rats (pretty much completely ignored me, had to say it twice because I thought they must not have heard me the first time) and just crinkled their noses when I handed them the poor little guy that didn't make it...

 

[Dahlas]

simply awful!

 

[KatTheHippie]

Stories like this make me remember why I hate the human race so much.