My animals give me super powers!

Thanks to keeping rats for years, I have the ability to hear an empty water bottle up to 4 yards away :P

Haha, just realized this as I heard the noise and automatically got up to get them water, and realized that this is probably an odd ability.

My sister and I also taught one of our cats the 'bark' (and teaching a cat ANYTHING should count as a super power lol). I can also usually diagnose a betta on sight (rescue and rehabbing bettas for 5-6 years now)

What strange super powers have your pets caused you to develop?

I have the similar betta diagnosing ability. Spending 3 years on a betta forum does that!

Makes going to petsmart SUCK though! So much tail rot!!!! I will never understand why even aquarium enthusiests refused to give proper care to bettas. That's like reptile owners giving proper care to everything except corn snakes saying "Yeah you can keep a corn snake in a 2.5 gallon tank with no his whole life, it probably won't kill him. Just clean it every few months". WHAT!

Haha, the ability to read the body language of a limbless, expressionless animal! I'd say that's a power we all share!

Also, "walking encyclopedia on animal identification and care power" for sure.

Oh yes. I can read my reptiles minds now. From the tiniest gecko to the ball pythons in my house. I can look at them and know: I'm hungry, I have to poop, I'm feeling Randy, leave me the hell alone, or I'm about to lay these beat it lady!
Lol.
Dealing with them ive become really good at dealing with illness', body language, etc. My vet calls me every once in awhile now to get advice. 


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

Purplemuffin- Ugh, I hate going into pet shops for that too. I worked at a small-chain aquarium shop (attached to a large chain pet store) for a year, and I kept bringing home the bettas that were healthy aside from some mild swim bladder issues. Most of them recovered no problem, but I had one CT mustard gas boy who never recovered (but lived for a year. Crankiest lil guy, but gorgeous).

We were at a petsmart today(generally worse than petco about betta care) and ALL of the bettas had SBD! Half of them were very much alive but forced floating up at the top, it was pathetic and sad! The employee said "aren't they so funny when they do that?" :( sigh. They had a beautiful marble veiltail there. I've always wanted a marble, but I'd rather buy from aquabid. That's where I got my boy, Dionysus :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by purplemuffin

We were at a petsmart today(generally worse than petco about betta care) and ALL of the bettas had SBD! Half of them were very much alive but forced floating up at the top, it was pathetic and sad! The employee said "aren't they so funny when they do that?" :( sigh. They had a beautiful marble veiltail there. I've always wanted a marble, but I'd rather buy from aquabid. That's where I got my boy, Dionysus :D

---

jumping to the defense of a petsmart. . .

I hope that that one employee was either from a different part of the store or brand new.

I work at a petsmart. What we do (and what all petsmarts are supposed to do) for betta care seems pretty good other than not having them in heated water--but you won't find bettas kept in warm water at even the best small aquarium stores. We change their water twice a week, feed only sinking pelleted food (no flakes), and we are very careful to not over-feed. None of the bettas where I work are currently constipated (trust me on that, I cleaned all their poop yesterday). The bettas are almost all in the store for less than one week--nothing that we are doing within that time could be causing SBD. While some of them do exhibit signs of SBD, they arrive at the store like that and most of the bettas seem healthy (not floating or sinking, no ammonia burns, no inflamed gills, no fin rot or other sign of external infections).

The health of the fish within petsmart (and probably other chain pet stores) has very little to do with their care within the stores. Most of the fish arrive at the stores very ill. For example--the last three weeks of small fantail goldfish at the store where I work either arrived with more than half of the fish already dead, or more than half dead before the next morning. Blame corporate for purchasing fish (and all the other animals :-/) from irresponsible breeders, but in general everyone within the stores is doing everything possible to properly care for them. There's occasional overcrowding, and we use crappy thermometers and hydrometers, but everything else is rather ideal. Good food (and good variety of food for the fish: appropriate flakes/wafers, pellets, frozen foods, and additionally vacation feeders for fish that require available food at all times), clean water twice a day, proper temperatures and approximate humidity (as close as possible with the gauges we have to use), all habitats (including fish tanks) completely scrubbed at least once a week (twice for bettas), appropriate substrates for all animals, excellent filtration system, a hospital tank/isolation room, and vet care when needed. When most fish and parakeets are in the store for less than one week, most reptiles are there for less than two weeks, most finches/other birds are there for less than a month, and most small animals are on the floor for less than two weeks (after a two week quarantine) these temporary conditions are no where near bad enough to be making them sick. We also do everything possible to ensure that the animals will be properly cared for once they're purchased. We won't sell animals to people planning on housing them in inadequate habitats (including goldfish) and push people towards more appropriate choices when it seems that they are unwilling/unable to properly care for something.

I've seen fish arrive dead and rodents (and two bearded dragons) arrive with horrible infections. There are birth defects too--one eyed (not the result of infections) and deformed fish and even a finch with only one leg. It's the breeders that money hungry corporate choose to work with that are the real problems. Most of the fish are so over-bred that they're guaranteed to be sick.

Complain to corporate about where the animals come from (and those stupid analogue gauges), but as long as everyone's doing their job don't complain about the care within the stores.

Depends on place to place. Plenty of petsmarts take horrible care of bettas, plenty of petcos do terrible, and some stores do incredible jobs. Our petsmart had bettas with brown water, excess food, and lots of poop. Half the fish were dead, the rest were extremely ill and the employees did not recognize this fact. I mentioned severe fin rot in one(veiltail looked like a female his tail was so far gone) and she actually thought it was a female. This store and most of the petsmarts around me have employees that just don't understand bettas. They clean their tubs much less often than twice a week. And because of this, the bettas don't always sell, meaning they sit in that dirty tub for quite a while. The marble I saw was the same I saw three weeks ago. He was much sicker this time. :(

I am well aware most of the bettas in petstores are actually culls from breeders so some of them do end up sick. I do find that fresh shipments in my area are healthier than the ones that are there for longer! This is true for me and many of my friends in a betta community I am a part of. Just in general we have found petcos to have higher quality healthier fish. Some are exceptions, others are not.

I still buy mine straight from breeders themselves, and I do complain when I see unhealthy fish and no one is doing anything to fix the problem. If our store took better care and our fish were healthier I might purchase from them, but in our area it's just not the case. Just like how most people don't care for reptiles right in petstores and yet there are a few exeptions, MOST petstores do not take proper care of betta fish, and most employees do not know or do not care, despite having these rules in place. I do find actually that it is often the aquarium specialized employees who do the worst with bettas for some bizarre reason. I guess they think they are just different than other fish. I had one tell me the importance of keeping a goldfish in a huge enclosure(and not to put it in a bowl) and yet said that bettas need a .5 gallon tank cleaned once a month and that on average I can expect them to live 3 or so months.

You are a great employee and I'm glad you take care of your bettas and your store works hard to keep them healthy. My area is not like this, and despite complaints, they are just fish, and even less important, they are just bettas! Sad.

And I think twice a week still isn't quite enough in a thing that small, but that's from being in a betta enthusiest forum. I change my 5 gallon once a week, and my boyfriend's 1 gallon was changed once every three days. But I like to keep as little ammonia as possible!

I'm sorry for being so defensive.

It's just frustrating hearing countless complaints about the care of animals in large pet stores when the majority of the problems have very little to do with anybody within the stores. I realize that some stores may not follow the guidelines and harm their animals through neglect--so complain about those specific stores and please try not to blanket all petsmarts/all petcos with that lack of care. I'm not saying any large pet stores are great, but we're really not all bad :please:

oh. . .and I'm sorry for derailing this thread

It's okay, I was defensive too. I just get upset seeing so many little deaths that no one cares about. They are such good pets, and even the fish lovers don't often care. It's bizarre how singled out they are as throw away animals. I've just had mostly negative experiences...I don't often praise the petstore itself, I generally end up praising the employees who give the outstanding care.

And back to the thread!