Quote Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan View Post
I am not coming down on you. Just trying to show the bigger picture. Would you rather "save" one and let 50 die or let one die and save 50? Providing everything you are saying is true I would bet you can get your money back and improve life for the rest of the animals that are stuck in these conditions. You just have to put up a big enough stink and make them realize you did them a favor by taking the animal. If any of the breeders on this board ever let an animal go that looked like that it would not go well for their business. Word would get out fast. It shouldn't be any different for a chain pet store.

Please understand. I am a vet tech so I'm intimately aware of the idea that I can't save them all. But I can save the one in front of me, and maybe help the others. If I had let Bob die, nothing would have changed. So it wasn't save one and let 50 die. It would have been save none, let 51 die. I didn't make a stink against petsmart itself, because I didn't want them to be shut down to my suggestions. I'm quite certain this snake came from the supplier in already poor condition, because you don't reach skeletal in 6 weeks when you've also had two feeds if you start a healthy weight snake. A non-feeder corn that's gone 6 weeks with NO food at all since hatching wouldn't look in as bad condition. So because I emphasized that I didn't want anyone at the store to get in trouble, that I did not consider them at fault, that I was certain the supplier gave them an already underweight snake, the manager was extremely open to suggestions on how to improve. There's only so much she can do when having to keep to store policy but small positive changes were made. And by owning Bob, I was able to provide good photos to show her emaciation and also provide photos of healthy-weight ball python hatchlings. So now when they get shipments in, they can identify if any are underweight to start, and take them to the vet as well as tell the supplier. And they'll be weighing the snakes to make sure they aren't losing.

So I saved one, and might have saved the next 50 or at least improved their lot.