family owned pet store vs petco

[frankykeno]

In my experience most of the chain stores provide subpar care to the animals. They hire minimum wage, inexperienced employees and put them in charge of animal's lives. I've also seen plenty of privately owned pet stores with conditions just as bad or worse. There are also a ton of bad breeders out there that couldn't care less about the animals, just about making a buck. We've seen some of them on this forum in the past and some are still here today (you know who you are). Breeders who sell kinked, sick or emaciated animals are all around you. Choose wisely...

Great post Jamie! That fact is, as you've said, there is good and there is bad out there so people need to be smart purchasers. You need to know what a healthy snake looks like, you need to educate yourself about the whole purcashing process. If you don't do those steps and you get a sick snake from a crappy supplier then you are in part responsible for that and not a "victim". There's tons of information all over the web that can help anyone considering buying a snake so do the prep work and be a smart consumer. If you don't like what you see in a store, private or chain or at a snake show or from a breeder - speak with your wallet and refuse to support their business.

[littleindiangirl]

The small stores around here are terrible. I can think of 3 off the top of my head that do well in fish sales, but everything else suffers terribly and should be reported. I much prefer going to petsmart and petco. At least there, corporate DOES have a hand in discipline, made all the more easier by reporting it to corporate. They do check up on those things!