world's crappiest petstores

[Mentat]

Although not my preferred local pet stores, I have no problem buying items on sale in there (i.e. Petco's $1 a gal. tank sale and Petsmart closeouts). A Pacman got at Petsmart was healthy, just need to get as soon as possible after arrival at store .

[Ted]

I went to petco to buy some tanks..the animals looked horrible.the iguana tank is what upset me the most.it was filled with sick and emaciated iguanas,several dead sitting on a water dish.no effort to clean them up or even pull out the deceased..what's worse the salesmen is standing right in front of the tank talking to someone....

[crazy]

Petco has some nice deals on aquariums, especially the $1 per gallon sale. I got a white tree frog a few months ago from the new store in holly springs, and they looked healthy. However their set up was not that great; same with their firebelly toad set up. I don't usually buy white's from them mostly because theirs are to small to be kept with my other white tree frog, but the one I got for some reason no one wanted to buy so it eventually got big enough for me to buy.

[sschind]

What I find amazing is that so many people will absolutely blast a store like petco because of the way they keep their animals and be adamantly opposed to buying any animals from there but they have no problems buying their cheap tanks and supplies. My feelings have always been if the store keeps their animals in such horrible conditions that you would never buy a live animal from them you shouldn't be buying ANYTHING from them. Back before you could get everything on line I had one customer give me his pair of leopard geckos he had had for 10 years because when he moved the only store that was close to him he could get supplies at was a petco and he refused to do business with them because of the way they kept their animals. I should add that so far, I don't feel that anyone who has posted to this thread has necessarily said this, its just something that usually comes up in threads like this.

As far as them being a big reason people are not interested in pets I say on the contrary. The big box stores get more people into pets every day than the small stores do in a month. I got far more customers once a petco opened up near me because they got people into the hobby (mostly aquatics but reptiles and amphibians as well) and when they couldn't satisfy those customers those customers sought out people who could help. Two of my better customers were petco employees who didn't hesitate to send people my way. I sold hundreds upon hundreds of Angelfish because these two people sent anyone looking for them my way rather than sell them their own. A lot of these were people that didn't even know I existed before petco got them into the hobby.

[crazy]

What I find amazing is that so many people will absolutely blast a store like petco because of the way they keep their animals and be adamantly opposed to buying any animals from there but they have no problems buying their cheap tanks and supplies. My feelings have always been if the store keeps their animals in such horrible conditions that you would never buy a live animal from them you shouldn't be buying ANYTHING from them. Back before you could get everything on line I had one customer give me his pair of leopard geckos he had had for 10 years because when he moved the only store that was close to him he could get supplies at was a petco and he refused to do business with them because of the way they kept their animals. I should add that so far, I don't feel that anyone who has posted to this thread has necessarily said this, its just something that usually comes up in threads like this.

As far as them being a big reason people are not interested in pets I say on the contrary. The big box stores get more people into pets every day than the small stores do in a month. I got far more customers once a petco opened up near me because they got people into the hobby (mostly aquatics but reptiles and amphibians as well) and when they couldn't satisfy those customers those customers sought out people who could help. Two of my better customers were petco employees who didn't hesitate to send people my way. I sold hundreds upon hundreds of Angelfish because these two people sent anyone looking for them my way rather than sell them their own. A lot of these were people that didn't even know I existed before petco got them into the hobby.

I know this isn't directly towards me and all, but I don't buy the frogs at petco only because they are to small for me to keep, and I only have 3 aquariums at the moment and all 3 have some sort of frog or toad in them that would and could eat the frogs petco has. I get alot of things from petco and would prefer to shop their over petsmart, mostly because the closest petsmart to me that has what I usually buy from petco is to far and usually has a wet dog kind of smell to it and the other doesn't usually carry what I usually get. I get all my substrate, plants, fake plants, gravel, fish food, and fish supplies from petco. In my area there is literally no other pet stores near my house besides petco that have what I get for my fish and frogs besides Wal-Mart and even they do not carry everything I usually get. There is truth in what you posted as well.

[limnologist]

chain stores like petco and petsmart are damaging and helpful to the hobby. sure they can be helpful with their easily accessible supplies at cheap prices and their variety of items. But you gotta remember, their main goal is to make money.....of course this is every business' goal, but they would say or do anything to sell their animals. I have a friend who got a bearded dragon from petco, he noticed it didnt look very well, but he wasnt very sure (he was new to the hobby) so he asked the worker and the worker said that the animal was 100% no-doubt, perfectly healthy. The thing had some sorta disease (I forget which one :P) and died 2 days later. He came back for a new one and then noticed that three others in the cage were also dead,

[Murphy]

I dunno, i'm pretty neutral about Petsmart (we don't have a Petco where I live). My GABF and Pacman I got from there are fine although the pacman was a little skinny when I bought him which is kind of why I got him. He's just over 2 inches SVL and they were feeding him like half inch crickets so I figured i'd pick him up and give him better conditions. After a couple weeks of night crawlers he's round as can be but it's quite obvious they don't really know what they're doing there. The employees at my petsmart mean well and a couple actually do seem to have knowledge but for the most part, they haven't done their research on how to care for each animal. I guess the one where I live isn't as bad as most others from what I hear so thats why im pretty neutral about it.