Worst pet store experience ever

xeonic said:
Also Willnevins doesn't sound new to the world of Chameleons. He was able to spot the husbandry issues. The lack of dripper, the water dish, the dehydrated sunken eye's, no basking area, the fact the cricket was too big for the Chameleon to eat. Though he is a junior member, I don't think he is new to Chameleons.
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I have owned my panther for a little over 3 months, but have been reading and researching for much longer. I am constantly learning from others mistakes, and have spent so much time making sure I do everything right. I definitely have more knowledge than experience when it comes to saving the life of a chameleon, and the lack of experience as well as the setup is what caused me to walk out of the store without the cham.

I will definitely give them print outs with information on proper husbandry and check up on it tomorrow morning (leaving for work soon). If it isn't alive at least they can't say what I was telling them was wrong, and hopefully they will utilize the information.

Someday my wife and I will open our own pet store and do everything right. It's not hard to look up the proper way to care for an animal, and being a pet store you should have all the tools readily available to give it the best environment possible. It's also not hard to ask questions (politely) to the person interested in buying it to make sure they know what they are getting in to before they purchase the animal. If I could I would put my store right next to this one just to put it out of business.
 
Mummy said:
Sadly I think this sometimes comes down to what is best for chameleons in the pet trade in general, rather than that particular chameleon. No, pets stores in general don't care about their animals, any of them, they are a commodity, and to be sold on for a profit and kept as simply as possible.

If people stop buying WC chameleons from pet stores that aren't even willing to give the minimum of care to keep them alive, then they will stop selling chameleons, or make more effort to keep them alive. It needs to make economical sense for a store to change their policies, not ethical sense. No it's not right, but it happens.

As I said above, by all means buy that chameleon for $40, but if you are, be willing to spend $200 getting it treated for its parasites, otherwise it has no chance and even the most excellent husbandry will not be enough to save it.

This is the third WC chameleon I have rescued, and it will be my last. I'd rather they died quickly (albeit uncomfortably and in horrific conditions) and reduced support for the prolific WC trade than every one was rescued, encouraging stores to re-stock, and ended up dying anyway either from damage incurred in transit and storage, or just from not adapting to being sentenced to a captive life.
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Agreed. I would hate to see a cham die, but in the grand scheme of things I think it is better not to support a business like that. It will only encourage them.

Speak with the manager/owner (is this a franchise, small business, corporate?) If it is corporate, ask for the number of both the district and regional manager- file a huge compaint.

File a complaint with whatever agency handles animal abuse cases. This is clearly animal abuse and should be investigated. Even if they show up and do nothing, it is guaranteed to get their attention as it looks bad on them and who wants the long arm of the law showing up at their door.
Then, write a letter to the editor of your local paper about the incident. Be respectful, but inform people about how rare and threatened chameleons are. Make it clear that chameleons are not blue belly lizards- many are on the brink of endangered species status. Also make it clear that their requirements are very very specific, and that this business has failed to meet those requirements and has completely ignored your recommendations, that you feel that people should consider this before doing business with them as you are very concerned about their sense of dedication to their animals. I would also make the point that if someone were to buy that chameleon today- they would likely take it home only to have it die within a week or so. If you can get a picture of that cham and a healthy one to send in, I would.

I would speak with the owner first, express my concerns and explicitly explain what it wrong with the chameleon and how to fix it. Offer to take it home and rescue it but do not give him/her a dime. These people should not be rewarded for their actions. This needs to be about saving a life and preventing further deaths to ignorance- not about getting a discount on a piece of merchandise (IMHO). The idea here is education. These people are ignorant about chameleons. Try to help them. If they ignore you- educate the public. Just be very very careful about how you do all of this. you do not want to make enemies and you do not want to run the risk of a lawsuit over libel. Make sure you stick soley with the facts and back up your claims.

This is how I would approach it. Personally, I would avoid a letter to the editor if I could. But if push comes to shove and I felt strongly enough about it....

What you are describing would probably piss me off enough to do it (excuse my Greek, reading your story really did make me very very angry- unfortunately it is all too common).

So, in summary:

1) Talk to the person in charge first and foremost. Print out some chameleon care sheets (heck, some of Sandra's blog entries would be perfect. They are concise enough and readable enough to fit the bill) and give them to him/her. Offer to rescue the little guy but make it clear the chameleon is close to death and you are not going to pay for him/her.

2) If that does not work, call an agency

3) If you do not see things change (I would try to follow up with the agency- sometimes you gotta bug them to get anything done- they might blow you off if you do not), I would talk to the manager again- perhaps more than once.

4) Last resort, write to the paper.

Just my thoughts. This is how I would consider handling it if I felt compelled to take action. Always keep in mind, this all needs to be 100% about educating everyone involved so no more chameleons die of neglect. It cannot be about revenge or feeling disrespected.
 
Willnevins said:
Before I got into chams, or knew anything about them really, I would go into this store to look around. I have seen the horrible way they keep all of there animals. Their bearded dragons have mouth rot as well as 2 other species of geckos in the same 10 gallon tank with them. They have at least 100 anoles piled on top of each other in one tank. They keep the male and female rats that they sell as pets together in one 10 gallon with a wire-made wheel that commonly rips their tails off as they run. I once asked to go in the back room to look at their hairless breeder rats. Hundreds of rats are kept in tiny little bins about 5-6" tall. They cant even stand up or stretch.

If I had the setup for the senegal I would love more than anything to be its savior. I have spent hundreds on my nosy be panther (watching him shed right now! :) and have hundreds more to spend as hes still in his baby setup. Once his small cage is free I will have the equipment to take in the poor senegal but until then the only thing I can do is wait :(. Its a very difficult situation, I went in there because I was bored and in the area and now have a life or death situation on my hands.
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Your empathy and attention are very admirable, but keep in mind that this is not your obligation. The fact that you spoke up if great but I do not think you should feel obligated to buy the chameleon. I also do not think its life should rest in your hands alone. This is the fault of the pet store. As annoying and frustrating as that may be, its the truth. Based on the rest of what you have written (about the anoles and rats), it does not even sound like ignorance- this sounds like blatant disregard. I would call someone. These guys need to be talked to and threatened with some fines.

Some people! Sheesh!

I almost equate these people to the idiots here in California who pick up endangered desert tortoises off the side of the road and take them home only to have them die because they cant take an hour of their time to research their needs- or they just plain lose interest. Talk about a beautiful animal! It is very unfortunate...
 
xeonic said:
AllFallDown had some great suggestions there. Bravo!
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Thanks. As annoying and distressing as such a thing can be, I think some good can be realized in it. It presents a good learning opportunity. I do hope it works out. Some pet stores....

Immanuel Kant argued that a moral person always view others as ends and not means (IE people are not means to an end, they are ends themselves as they have intrinsic value). I think the problem here is that we (societally) are not extending this notion to our pets like we perhaps should be. The desert tortoise example comes to mind. (Can you tell I ran into an issue involving desert tortoises recently? Stupid stupid people...)

Just my $0.02
 
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Personally, I wouldn't have held back on the vomit. I would have been sick aaaaaall over that stupid, misinformed girl. Some people do just deserve it!!!

By the sounds of it (and I'm a noob, so please excuse if I'm wrong), that cham may not survive for long even if you did your best to nurse it back to health.

A crying shame, none the less.
 
the problem is that "petshops " dont want the help .... at least when i tried in the past they looked at me like i was a bug .... and i tried diferent methods .... they think they already know everything , as if they were supperior to normal people !
 
The best thing you can do is to not patronize a bad pet shop.

This place has been in business for 40 years? They aren't likely to change and from the sounds of it don't really care about the animals.

Your options have been outlined well by others but the bad reviews on yelp and word of mouth to not shop there is your best bet.

You could always stand out front with a sign and hand out literature on proper pet care. I would consult a lawyer before doing that though.

Also as a personal preference be very careful about what "Animal Rights" groups if any you would enlist for help. A great many of these groups are anti-captive animals period and have an agenda that could only be fulfilled by general human extinction. They care more to take away your rights than for the proper care of captive animals.
 
Thank you everyone for your support. It's comforting to know that others feel the same as I do. I can file a complaint to the better business bureau of CT online, and will be doing so tonight after work. Even if the only thing they do is send a letter saying someone complained that may be enough to get them to act. I will also be delivering them some print-outs if I can get my printer working, even if I have to leave it on top of the chams cage to make sure they get it (maybe even with a home-made dripper!). Once again thank you everyone for being great members of society.
 
On another note... Senegals are tough little chameleons and once they get hydrated and eating spring back well... If you do decide to go for the rescue just give it a long shower and get it eating.

Then breed it and saturate the market with cheap healthy captive breds so the pet stores have no choice but to stop carrying them... at least that's my plan.
 
The problem with pet stores, is that they generally don't have any one animal long enough to see the long term consequences of their substandard care. The way they see it, if it lives long enough to make it into the customers hands, they have done well enough. Unfortunately, their poor care is not the biggest problem. It is the bad information that they give to their customers that is the real crime. A chameleon can in most cases be nursed back to health after a few weeks in a pet store if the person doing the nursing knows what they are doing. The best thing that anyone can do, is just continue participating in this forum. Rather than tell the pet stores what they are doing wrong, print up some cards with this forums URL and ask them to supply new chameleon owners with it. Most salespersons would be happy to tell a customer a website rather than actually have to answer questions. Be nice to the salespeople and make their job easier and you will save more chams than by telling them they don't know what they are doing.
 
Personally, I would get some of my friends and protest against the shop. What they are doing is terrible:mad: You should stand up for that poor chameleon and all those that have died before it that terrible place.:mad: Nothing beats o good ole' fashion protest with picket signs and a megaphone.
 
AllFallDown said:
I found some stuff which may or may not prove useful. One site suggests contacting the USDA. (I would follow up with them, sometimes the USDA people are "busy"), although I get the impression that reptiles, as a class, are not protected by the same laws, as say, a dog. Nonetheless, here's what I found.

http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/reporting-cruelty-faq.aspx

http://www.cthumane.org/site/PageServer?pagename=getinvolved_StopCruelty

http://www.petstoreabuse.com/laws.html
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I agree completely.
 
Ive done the same man. At a petshop where I use too live .... They had pygmys. With crickets bigger than them they all had bite marks n where about 8 lil guys in a small critter keeper ... I bought all 8 that day i stayed broke but i knew i did the rite thing :) ... Almost a year later and there living like champs i gave them too my nephew as a bday gift (17years old) so there in good care ...hes breed n sold them too his friends ...
 
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