Are you kidding me?!?! (Rant Warning)

[crazyj83]

Ok so I took my wife and kids out to a few pet stores in the Tulsa area to see what herps they had, and to teach and show the kids how awesome all the reptiles are. Anyways everything was going well, untill... We walked into the Southern Ag store on 71st & Sheridain, did the normal walk through checkin out fish and other animals. We then come to the herp section, nice selection, HOWEVER ! Every damned cage was dirty, most of the humidity was way low, no idea what the temps were and we could tell the poor guys wanted out just to seek better conditions... Now this upset me and I raised a little cain but nothing pissed me off more then this next ordeal, ( be prepaired to get angry ) my wife noticed a tank with 1 sub adult normal bp, 4 '11 baby bps, one looked like a nice green toned pastal, one looked almost cinny and the other was a nice reduced normal, now before I get to the heart breaker they also had a sweet lookin orangy/albino morph burm in with them... Now mind you the tanks were filthy, but I was never going to expect this, the fourth lil bp got handed to me and the idiot that handed him to me said, oh hes shedding, not thinking anything of a shed strike I grabbed the lil guy and immediatly noticed this poor bp was NOT in shed, this guy had one of the worst cases of scale rot I have ever seen... Realizing this I went off on the guy, (nowhere near as hard as I should have ) and made him take the snake back, I immediatly went to the restroom washed my hands clear to elbow amd returned to see this idiot still holding the sick baby and putting the others back into the dirty tank... I told him that they need to keep the bps all seperated and have them all checked out. I also informed him to clean the damn tanks and set the humidity amd temps right. Now to make things worse my wife in the middle of my giving the guy an ear full pointed out to me the bp with scale rot (still beimg help by idiot boy) was dripping slime from its mouth and kept opening its mouth trying to breath. Now we all know what those symthoms mean RI !! I desided that no matter how hard I tried to pound it into this guys head that he needed to either take care of the issue or bring me another butt to chew, I figured I wasn't going to get the responce I wanted so we left the store and I will NEVER go back into any of that companies stores. Now, sorry for the long winded rant but the part that angers me the most is that store has an IN STORE VET CLINIC... Really??!! How the heck can a certified and licenced vet not do checks on all the animals?? Anyways i'm sorry again about this post but I had to vent or a company head was gonna roll... Please feel free to add if you have anything, or have a horror story of your own.

[Royal Hijinx]

That's horrible but not terribly surprising.

[Kyle1989]

wow I cant believe it was so bad

[crazyj83]

Yeah I have done rescuse where the animals wernt as bad as this lil'guy... I seriously am thinkin about calling the aspca and anyone elce that may help and have the place inspected and fined for neglect of animals... I'm nowhere near done...

[WarriorPrincess90]

I haven't ever seen conditions THAT terrible! God, that's horrible! Makes me sick to my stomach to think of a snake suffering that much.

But, just to add another pet store horror story (of a much smaller caliber), I'll just go ahead and post what I was gonna rant about in another thread here.

I went back to the petstore where I normally buy my feeders yesterday. As is a habit of mine, I stop to check out all of the herps that the guy has. So, I glance in the tank where there are 3 '11 baby normals, one being the absolutely beautifully colored baby I had looked at a little over a week ago and considered bringing home. Man, am I glad I DIDN'T! The baby I had adored had a huge dent in his eye and was laying limp in the back, twitching. I got the key from the owner and snatched him up to see if he was still alive and he was literally CRAWLING with MITES! They were EVERYWHERE! And his siblings were too. I immediately told the guy about it, and he said he had been treating them for mites for a week with some mite spray. But I saw them last week and didn't see any! So this is getting WAY out of hand, very quickly if he is in fact treating them. So I put the little guy in some water to soak, hoping to help with his dehydration and to get some of the mites off, and told the owner of the store very pointedly that he needed to get some PAM ASAP! And that he should be soaking them everyday, and should move them away from the rest of his healthy animals. I just really hope he does, and will probably never buy a snake from him after this.

Granted, they came like that from the breeder apparently, so it's not entirely his fault. But, he needs to being doing more for them IMO. I was so bothered by the sight. I had never seen mites in person prior to that. :/

[cinderbird]

You're better off going to a nice reptile show if you have one near you, instead of going to a pet store. :/ unfortunately, most pet stores have no idea how to care about reptiles or what signs they show when they are sick.

I'm sorry you had to see this and i'm sorry the animals are suffering. Your best bet may be to call animal control or something else to see if they can get the animals removed or something.

[crazyj83]

Yeah i'm not gonna stop untill all the animals are out of that store, the lil sick one is probably so far gone he just needs to be put down, the rest of them need to be treated and find better owners... That store is going to regret me walkin through the door..

[crazyj83]

You're better off going to a nice reptile show if you have one near you, instead of going to a pet store. :/ unfortunately, most pet stores have no idea how to care about reptiles or what signs they show when they are sick.

I'm sorry you had to see this and i'm sorry the animals are suffering. Your best bet may be to call animal control or something else to see if they can get the animals removed or something.

Yeah I just got my cinny fader male from the Tulsa show 2 weeks ago, I just like to go to the pet shops cuz they like to put morphs in as normals... Thats how I got my pastal het pied female...lol

[enchantress62]

It always makes me angry when I hear these stories. Most of the major pet stores in my area do not hire based on animal experience but rather on retail experience. To me that shows the mentality of the corporation. Mass produce and sell sell sell. Who cares if the animals suffer. Well I'm all for calling the ASPCA on irisponsible pet stores. It wont stop unless we take responsablity and do our part.

[snakesonaplane]

It's a sad fact indeed, a lot of people and stores don't know or care about taking good care of the animals they have. Such is the nature of business: make money and stock loss the things that can't. I run my own business, so I know first hand that there is no room for feelings or emotions, as money is the first priority. I just hate to see people who have living things relying on them, due to the responsibility that they chose to take on, neglect them because of the need for monetary gain. This is especially true for small businesses: in order to save money, they don't take good care of their animals...At my local Petsmart, there are people dedicated and hired specifically for exotics, amphibians, etc etc. At my local "hole in the wall" pet store, however, the animals all look sickly and malnourished. Such neglect is unforgivable, but in a business aspect, unavoidable.

I am definitely for calling ASPCA on that store. If they can't take the responsibility to take care of their revenue-gaining merchandise, they don't need to be in business.