Sadly, in a lot of petstores, the next ten to take the place of the one you buy are already back in the stock-room waiting until the display-floor animal dies or finds a home, already in the same conditions. It's even worse for the rodents and small mammals, since they're often housed in some really over-crowded situations 'backstage' that they simply couldn't do with a lot of the reptiles/amphibians like pacman frogs because of cannibalism. The ones in back don't even get the pathetic attempts at treatment that the ones up front do if they fall ill. Pretty gross stuff.

I 'saved' my pacman and my two goldfish from the same store, so I can't really say anything about not supporting the chains stores Honestly, I think that even if all the people who were really concerned about giving their animals proper care were to boycott buying animals from those stores (because let's face it, they're usually the only way to get supplies without having them shipped, which can get pretty pricey! I'd still have to shell out money to them for the basics even if I never looked at their animals again) the number of idiots who really don't care would probably still keep them going. Gah, the whole system is so frustrating!