Well I don't usually "go off" on PetCo employees but boy today it was VERY tough to keep my temper.

My son and I were browsing through PetCo and stopped to look at some big, black Bear hamsters. Another family was also looking and asked for assistance. This young man came over and was about as clueless as it comes with small animals. After fumbling about in the enclosures and basically scaring the beejeesus out of the hamsters, he finally manages to grab one. Funny enough making comments about how he gets bit a lot (I'd have bitten you too buddy!).

Not holding this poor hamster correctly he promptly drops the poor bloody thing. This is a tall young man. That poor thing dropped over 4 feet on to a very hard floor! Dumb dumb stands there looking rather stunned until I sharply told him to get that animal off the floor and have it looked at immediately by a manager. After mumbling something about this (the other family was just standing there with their mouths open in shock), he goes to put it back in the cage with the others! ARRRRGH!

I'm getting a tad ticked at this point! So I tell the clueless wonder..."DO NOT put that hamster in there! Call your manager and have that animal seen to!" He mumbles something and wanders off. At that point I leaned over and suggested to the mother of the family she might want to buy a pet elsewhere and that this kid was about as clueless as a stump when it came to handling small pets.

Unfortunately we did have to leave to catch our bus home so I wasn't able to follow up with the store manager but he's a pretty good guy and really seems to like the small animal section so I'm confident the hamster was seen to. I think the kid didn't want to show his manager he'd dropped and injured the hamster but no way was I going to let him put that poor thing back into the enclosure with the others. Geeze louise!