Just A Bit of A Rant!

[frankykeno]

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!

[Mr. H]

While it's nice to know it's not just reptiles that are subjected to incompetent pet store employees, that story gets me pretty wound up. It'd be even better if pet stores only employed competent employees.

[python.princess]

don't they have some sort of training..... or something....

[tigerlily]

Awwww, the poor thing. I'm glad you were there to see that he received some attention.

[joannarea]

They hire kids that are there only for a pay check, and move on to the next job every other month. Training usually consists of, take out the old bedding, this is the new. Because the animals are not socialized to handling, they squirm and nip and bite, and they untrained staff are more afraid of their job then interested. Terrible fate for the animals.

[Argentra]

That's it exactly. They seem to hire the most clueless people they can just so they won't get smart to the horrible rules and conditions the animals are kept in. No, there is no training whatsoever in regards to the animals. The only training you receive is in following their outdated crappy policies. The animals are purchased en mass from a mass breeding company that works with these pet stores and are NEVER handled. I've been around animals most of my life and I was afraid to reach in for those frickin hamsters...more so for the ferrets. Despite this, I still tried my best to handle them every chance I got and of course was promptly told off by idiot managers.

Every animal in one of those chain stores, from fish to birds to mice, are mishandled, improperly housed, and cared for by morons in 90% of stores.

[recycling goddess]

well i have a good story to share with you jo. i was at a petsmart a year ago - looking at the mice and i was interested in a little cutie pie... well the woman went to get him for me and he jumped out of her hands and smacked down on the floor. she immediately scooped him up and said to me, "sorry, you can't buy him, we have to get this little one to the vet immediately"... off she scurried with the mouse safe in a box (so he couldn't jump again).

made me proud to see her take his injury so seriously. she came back a little bit later... apologized for the inconvenience and asked if i was interested in another one. her manager was taking the mouse to the vet as we spoke... i wasn't interested in any of the other mice, but i sure was pleased to patronize that store again!

[Kagez28]

yea or she said she was taking it to the vet...

[Mr. H]

yea or she said she was taking it to the vet...

I don't see what she would gain in lying about it.

[frankykeno]

That's great Aleesha and I'm hoping they treated this little creature just as well. It just astounds me that they are this clueless about their own stock. Little rodents are jumpy, anyone with half a brain knows this. Why in the world wouldn't you have a system to move them from the general enclosure into a small carrier (they sell enough of those!) and then on to a raised edge small table for customer examination. Hand grabbing nervous rodents isn't showing them off well to potential buyers, it puts the rodents and the staff at risk of exactly what happened....other than the physical risks, it just seems plain bad business practise in my mind.