# Tribute to That Kind Pet Store Staff



## Asiposea (Dec 16, 2016)

This is not quite a rant, but a shout out to the folks that do work at pet-stores that really are knowledgeable and kind. 

Many threads in this forum really bash the staff at petstores as "evil, uncaring, unethical, stupid, etc". While there are certainly people out there who fit this mold, nobody seems to talk about the good experiences they may have had from a really great worker. I realize this topic has the potential to spiral into a mess of strong feelings, that's why it's here. I'm not saying anything about the ethics of a store that sells live animals (make your own thread on that!), but I'm focusing on some of the people who work there that are genuinely GOOD.

Many years ago, as a teenager, I worked at a bigbox petstore for a year. I was fortunate enough to have really great coworkers and managers. We ALL cared about the animals and we worked hard every day for them. The hardest part of the job was getting through to customers who didn't seem to care about the pets they were buying. Here's just a few things that happened that will hopefully give you a glimpse into what you may not realize:

1. My shift was at 6am. My manager allowed me to buy extra fruit and veggies every day from the grocery store next door to also give to the rats and other littles that weren't required by procedures to receive. I was required to take them out of the small animal cages when the store opened so customers wouldn't see it.....because at one point one of the customers complained that the raspberries given to the rats made them look bloody or the spinach looked wilted and this was abusive. So we fed them special treats 'secretly'.

2. Two or three times a month I would find a 'mystery box' at 6am at the front of the store. These were always animals that people 'got tired of' and clearly didn't want: rats, snakes, hamsters, fish in jars, lizards, a parrot that kept calling me 'stupid', puppies, kittens, a dead squirrel. We had a list of rescue organizations and we delivered the animals on our own. Many staff would adopt the animals themselves, nurse them to health and find good homes. This made us passionate about giving information to potential owners.

3. I sold a hamster to a lady who asked if she could run errands before going home. I told her 'no'. She called three hours later to complain that after she went grocery shopping, the hamster escaped the temporary container and demanded that I search through her car. I unfortunately didn't find the poor creature during the time the woman was shouting at me while I was crawling through her car. My manager refused to give her a refund and refused to sell her any more.

4. In the year I worked there, I never saw a sick rat. And only one was returned, and this was because of aggression (and yeah, we were all scared of this poor rat when it came back). Turn around was typically two weeks in quarantine and a week or two on the floor. We did have one we suspected was pregnant...we kept her at the store. Hamsters, unfortunately, were the ones that tended to get sick. 

5. Before and after hours, staff would often carry around rats (or various other animals) in pouches and feed them yogies while we refaced shelves and did chores (okay, we may have 'stolen' these yogies off the shelves to feed them). Of course, this meant that we got to know the sweetest of sweet rats and we either bought them or called our friends who were looking for a sweety squish.

6. I've been bitten many times by hamsters while giving them medication, but the dedication would pay off usually. Except now I'm not fond of hamsters. Sick animals were ALWAYS treated asap. We had a vet in the store so this was convenient. One staff I knew took the animals to the vet if they so much as gave her a funny look...and we were allowed to.

7. A customer yelled at me because the guinea pigs had taken out the orange slices from their bowl and I was neglectful by not placing them back in the bowl.

8. Staff would put boxes and toilet paper rolls in the small animal cages at night for them to play with and chew. All of this had to be taken out in the morning so customers wouldn't see it and complain that it was 'ugly' and that they couldn't even see the animals.

9. A mom came in to buy her 8 year old a guinea pig for a surprise to teach her 'responsibility'. She said she already had a ten gallon tank for it to live in (presumably from her dead fish) and didn't care when I told her this was unacceptable- she directly told me the tank was find and she wasn't getting another cage or two piggies and that I just wanted her to spend money for my commission (we don't get commissions). She also told me that as soon as the child failed to clean the cage then she was going to give it away because she was a tough mom/tough love. I spoke with my manager and he allowed me to refuse the sale. I have no doubt she bought her piggy from another place, but we sure weren't going to give her any of the pigs under our care.

10. A customer yelled at me because the parakeets were loud and flying around and this meant they were unhappy and I was a terrible human being and I should die and how can I live with myself for working in a place that caged live animals with feelings. This lady made me cry.

11. We had MANY repeat customers who took the time to know us...they were polite, kind, caring and rolled their eyes with us when they'd witness ridiculous other customers. They knew we had a hard job but that we really did do our best. Kudos to these folks.

12. I trudged an hour and a half in over a foot of snow with ice underneath to get to work one morning because my petstore pets needed their breakfast, dammit.

13. I never suspected that any rat I sold was to be a snake feeder. This may shock you, but all of the people I sold rats to were moms with kids/teenagers/college students/plain rat lovers who were interested in a pet rat. There was also no reason for them to lie about this. I was relieved. There were cheaper options for snake feeders at other places I suppose.

I could go to 1000 with various stories, but the point is, I acknowledge that there are those wonderful (and terrible) people working in pet stores from managers to that shy highschool kid. They have to deal with people who have very strong opinions about live creatures. Think about it...working in petstore retail is not quite the same as serving coffee or selling jeans. No, we didn't know every aspect about the care of every single species of fish. Sometimes we forgot how long a parakeet lived as opposed to a finch (sorry sir, I may have told you 25 years, woops).  But I sure told you that rats should be in pairs and that Martin cages were better than most of the shoeboxes we sold.

A thumbs up to the folks at petstores who really do care. For those of you that find a kind store associate...tell them so, I guarantee it will make their day and energize them. For those of you that actually work in a petstore...continue practicing kindness and caring.


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## Rattielover965 (Apr 26, 2016)

When people say that petstores are bad,they mean most petstores,not all. I've only ever been to a few good petstores there are only two I can think of that I've been to right of the top of my head.One of those doesn't sell pets, but is pet friendly and people often bring their dogs(I've seen people with cats and even a chicken there) .The other petstore's employees work with certain groups(reptiles,birds,small pets,fish,cats,etc.), the employees are VERY educated and caring about the animals they take care of,interact with animals that can be interacted with,animals are taken to the vet,genders are separated,if the animals don't get adopted they aren't killed/become feeders they continue to be played with and taken care of,and all the animals are from rescues.


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## Mewlittle (Jan 16, 2017)

I was recently in a petstore for the first time getting a food bowl for my rats I was enjoying myself looking at the mice and other animals and I was watching one mouse fall off the wheel and jump back on it and fall off again I think that mouse was having a blast and the other mice was eating or drinking their water or playing with each other then I noticed one little mouse setting on a purple hideout not moving his eyes was sunken in and was barely breathing all the other mice looked very healthy by way I walked up to the pet store worker and I go excuse me sorry on bothering you but I think one of your mice is going out she goes what you mean going out? I go going out as in dying barely breathing etc so she called someone over the worker goes which one is it so I pointed at the little sick mouse telling her its symptoms and she went from happy face to sad face and she didn't say much after that and no I didn't blame anyone I did tell her I can tell the animals are well taken care of which they was but I also had bad experiences with petstores thou not because of the animals its because of the workers actually not giving a rats butt :/


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## siharashu (Jan 4, 2017)

Thank you so much for posting this. I work at a pet store and we make sure to take really good care of all the animals we have in the store. All my coworkers are really pleasant and knowledgeable and the only time we're unkind is when people make rude comments about our animals; "How many tranquilizers is that puppy on to keep it calm?" Or "I'll buy this snake and if I don't like it I'll just skin it" and stuff like that. We take the welfare of all our animals very seriously so it's hurtful when people rag on pet stores as a whole. I definitely have been to some pet stores I worry about but it's nice to see us recognizing the good ones, too. 😁


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