Petsmart employees

[SludgeMunkey]

I have found that both Big Name "Pet" retailers in the US to be very, very, touch and go both on cleanliness and knowledge. I often purchase supplies for my pugs and our snakes at them, however I would never buy anything live from them, other than fruit flies. Here in Omaha, PetSmart is better stocked, but PetCo has better prices.

If I were to make a judgment call on employee knowledge between the two here, PetCo would win, however I found that most of them in other locations around the country were masters of misinformation.

Then again, I am a bit of an elitist when it comes to pet shops in general...

[Kurt]

Aren't we all?

[SludgeMunkey]

Aren't we all?

The wife claims this is my main interest in this hobby:

"You just like going to pet shops and making the poor idiotas that work there look stupid in public. You also enjoy watching them squirm when you ask to see the manager/owner."


She is right...I guess...

[Kurt]

Yes, that is fun! The other half of the coin is when you get employees that worship you like a god. I think those ones are the caring ones, as they seem to want to learn everything you can teach them.

I do like shooting down the ones that think they are better than me just because they work there and they are the "expert". There was this one employee at Petco that comes to mind.
Their hermit crab enclosure was overly wet, I mean it was really swampy. There was so much water in the substrate that you could pour it like gravy. Anyway, there was the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh emitting from the enclosure. I told an employee and he said they had a new guy that doesn't quite what he was doing yet and he had taken care of the animals the day before. Other cages were screwed up too. He then went and got the "expert". She came over looked and at told him and I that's just the way that hermit crabs smelled. I have never kept hermits before, but I have been around quite a few and I know the smell of rotting flesh, so much so that I can usually tell what kind of animal it is down to class.
I argued with her over it she was having no part of it. Even after I told her who I am and what my credentials are. My friend who is a wildlife educator/science teacher was with me. She has kept hermit crabs and she was even arguing with this pinhead of an employee. I should've asked to see the manager, but I just walked away in disgust. Its a shame she had to hide behind her arrogance to cover up her lack of knowledge and the fact that an employee and ****ed up and they had not fixed the problem.

[adawinters]

I would love to know where she got the idea of "swampy" for a hermit crab enclosure. The tropical beaches they come from can't really be classified as "swamps." They need water/humidity to keep their gills wet, but a bog isn't really their thing.

I don't even think of it as arrogance any more: just insecurity. When someone is factually wrong, and fighting with made-up or inaccurate facts, I often think it's just not having the sense of self to admit it. It's scary to be wrong. Yeah, sometimes we get old or bad information, but what ever happened to, "I have never heard that. Let me look into it." Is that really so hard? If I could get that sentence out of more clerks' mouths, that alone would be enough to send me home with a smile on my face.

[Kurt]

When I worked at the Museum of Science in Boston and the Museum of Natural History of Harvard University, we were told if a vistor was ask a question for which we had no answer for, we were to say "I don't know". We were also that we should take their contact info and get back to them with an answer when we had one, but that was optional and not a single visitor ever took me up on that offer. We were never to make stuff up to look smarted or to cover up our short comings. To do so was a good way to get fired.

[John]

Kurt, that's the scientific approach.

[JeffX]

That is the way everyone should go when asked about something they don't know. There really is nothing wrong admitting you don't know something. I worked with a kid who supposedly was going to be working at our local zoo who used to tell customers he could tell the sex of our Bearded Dragons before they even came close to maturity. I loved the guy that told me that if you feed Lionfish live food they'll never take frozen food like in the wild. He honestly said that.

[adawinters]

I once walked into a petstore just as they were sexing and separating juvenille hamsters that were just old enough to be sold... and I wound up taking over and sexing them, because they were getting it wrong more often than not. (Imagine being the 8 year old who gets a "boy" hamster for her birthday, only to wind up with a full litter to raise/rehome.)

[Chel]

Yesterday I went into my local Petsmart and I found a few things that totally disturbed me. For one, they had some sort fo toad, a pacman frog, and a chubby frog in the same enclosure. Not to mention, the enclosure was way too small for that many animals. Then. they have their FBTs in pretty much all aquatic enclosures with a turtle landing for them to sit on outside the water. I was horrified and actually considered purchasing all of them to save them from all of it.

[Kurt]

By purchasing them, you reward their them for their bad husbandry skills/policies.

[into]

By purchasing them, you reward their them for their bad husbandry skills/policies.

true. Though you have to consider that most of them will get bought up by children and uneducated people that see them as novelty $5 pets that are seen as disposible by many. ... like goldfish.

I've been to pet stores where a clerk was chasing frogs around to get one for a child requesting one. Recently, I overheard a kid ask his mom if he could get a frog and she told him "no, you keep killing em... maybe next time".

[Chel]

It breaks my heart that people think of frogs and toads as disposable. They are just as alive as any other pet and deserve the same amount of care as any other pet.

[into]

It breaks my heart that people think of frogs and toads as disposable. They are just as alive as any other pet and deserve the same amount of care as any other pet.

I have to admit that before owning them, I never gave much thought to frogs.

[Chel]

I have to admit that before owning them, I never gave much thought to frogs.

Even though I recently just got into frogs and toads, I stil felt bad for them at stores when they weren't being treated right.

[Kurt]

Recently, I overheard a kid ask his mom if he could get a frog and she told him "no, you keep killing em... maybe next time".

My mom used to say that I kept on killing things all the time, still does occasionaly. That maybe have been true when I first started keeping fish and herps, but it hasn't been true in a long time. I had a moray eel that lasted for ten years, when every thing I read said that the captive life expectancy was only eight months. I lost it in the mid-nineties. I always have to throw these things back at her when she makes those kind of statements.

[cvBon1]

Ugh, Petsmart.. dont get me started. My best friend used to work there and she would tell me horror stories, the stupid people looking to buy animals. It should be illegal for people to buy animals if theyre uneducated, at least.. like.. for example to put a fancy goldfish in a bowl?! Omg! thats ridiculous! Its like putting a dog in a closet! Its cruelty!! I remember she came home one day infuriated. A customer wanted to buy a chameleon for his sons school project. Just to sit in a little habit he built... thats it!! She said no, they went to another employee and they were able to buy hermit crabs. Petsmart doesnt care, nor do they care enough to train there employees about proper animal care!

And its not just the big companies either! I have a few shops around here called Petworld... and its horrid. I was told that one of the employees my best friend currently works for (a natural foods pet store) went into there and noticed the Chameleon that was for sale was COVERED in Mites, to the point it probably couldnt be healed. And she asked the woman nearby if they were treating it, she said no! She said NO!! And that infuriated this person and she asked the woman to speak to the manager cause that was animal neglect, and the petworld employee replied.. "I am the manager" .... ... then she just walked out, cause that was just... too much

I think she should've called someone.

That or people need to crack down harder on Licensing people to sell pets.


Uhhh... sorry for the rant. It just drives me CRAZY...

[sschind]

I have found that both Big Name "Pet" retailers in the US to be very, very, touch and go both on cleanliness and knowledge. I often purchase supplies for my pugs and our snakes at them, however I would never buy anything live from them, other than fruit flies. Here in Omaha, PetSmart is better stocked, but PetCo has better prices.

If I were to make a judgment call on employee knowledge between the two here, PetCo would win, however I found that most of them in other locations around the country were masters of misinformation.

Then again, I am a bit of an elitist when it comes to pet shops in general...

Why wouldn't you buy anything live from them?

[Rat The Unloved]

About two years ago I walked into a Petco in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas. I explained that I was looking for a job, and gave my laundry list of experience with everything from commercial rabbit raising, to rats, to iguanas, turtles, snakes, frogs...etc. The Manager seemed really eager to hire me, and handed me an application.

I asked : "So, is there any specific training for the reptile area or..." - he cut me off "Oh, you won't be handling the animals, you'll be working cashier."

Through a few minutes of conversation it became abundantly clear that they do not hire people with ANY kind of knowledge for the special care areas, because those people "cost too much in supplies". I.e. medication and treatment for the animals.

I said a few very vulgar words to him, and did not return.

[John]

Sadly, that sounds like what I would expect from them. I try my best not to buy things from the big chains.