Poor environment

Jwillchamel

Established Member
I just want to tell people about my visit to petco and petsmart last night. My wife ,kids and I went to petco and whats in a plastic tank a beautiful female panthe chameleon and in that tank is a water bowl and dirt in the bottom of the tank so i tell the assistant that the tank is set up wrong he says this is petco policy so nuthing can be done so needless to say stuff like this gets my water boiling so we leave and goto pets mart and even worse now they have in a 5 maybe 10 gallon tank 2 male veiled chameleons about to kill each other again with water bowl no drip system and crap all over the tank so i contacted the manager and told them they would kill each other and reluctantly she separated them when i told her i wouldnt leave until she did. Tell me what yall think about this do yall see same stuff every where?
 
Its the same everywhere with these chain stores besides the maybe one or two that have a qualified and experienced reptile keeper in charge of the reptiles. My local petsmart had atleast 5 young veileds in a small ten gallon terrarium. No basking light, one single vine, no foliage, and a water bowl with a dripper. Not that the dripper was useful since it was sitting on a rock elevating it two inches above the water bowl just dripping into the bowl.

I talked to the store manager and expressed my concerns and even wrote to the corporate offices. After my talk with them, they moved the dripper higher but didn't have it dripping on any leaves. Just dripping straight into the bowl again...

The only thing that may help the situation is a full on boycott of there chameleons. The chances of that happening or slim to none though since they market the live animals to people who do little to no research prior to making the decision to buy the animals. If they really cared then they would take the 30 minutes or so to acquire the correct information about lighting, enclosures, hydration and so on for the caresheets that they should potential customers.

If by chance spreading the word not to buy chams from these chain stores works and they no longer sell chameleons, it'll just open up that cage/tank for another unfortunate animal to suffer in... It's a perpetual cycle of poor care and neglect for these animals.
 
These store don't care for anything unless it's money that's all this world revolves around you don't have it your screwed
I have one pet smart that has a experienced reptile keeper working there it's far from me I do not go to the pet stores I send my husband and if I do go I look at the floor till I get to the crickets or reptile aisle
 
As someone who works in a pet store - one of the ones that knows what they're doing - this is depressing. Unfortunately, yes, I have seen this at other stores. The only way we are able to keep the animals that we keep is to lose money on them.
 
It must be very frustrating to work in a pet store and be the one with a clue knowing the minute you go home some coworker who only knows rats will be telling people how to care for reptiles.
 
I have worked in petco. I also shop and petco and petsmart. I do not approve of the way mine take care of their animals, but my standard of care is stupidly high for all animals. But I am well aware that my stores' chameleons are much better taken care of than almost any of them that are posted here and since I shop there so often I have a huge amount of pull there. If I notice an issue, especially with medical problems and I alert a staff member they will immediately grab either a manager or the reptile care person, depending on the store, I will talk to the person face to face, and express my concerns. They will then call the vet and move the animal in the back. The next time I see the animal in the display it has no sign of the medical issues. I also take a lot of their rescues/adoptions in and the petco in my actual town has my personal cell phone number. In my opinion is it highly dependent not on who just runs the store and cares for the animals, but also on the area you live in. I live in central CA which is usually a huge reptile friendly place. You can also take it to a cooperate level. Surprisingly a huge amount of what happens in the stores is not ACTUALLY ok with cooperate. Just some of the training is slow on the uptake.
 
It must be very frustrating to work in a pet store and be the one with a clue knowing the minute you go home some coworker who only knows rats will be telling people how to care for reptiles.

Oh goodness the stories I could tell. Thankfully my boss makes everyone learn extensively about animals, but that doesn't mean everyone actually pays attention. One of my coworkers tried to mist our uromastyx (a desert animal, which can drown if you do that too often). But in the end its all about the management, they know which employees to watch (double check what they're doing and telling customers) and who actually knows the right things.
 
Back
Top Bottom