THIS IS WHY I HATE GOING IN PETSMART!!!!

[Spikey92]

okay so heres my point of view.
I´m gonna tell my story and my experience with petsmart. That doesnt mean that EVERY petstore is like that. (even though I think at least 85 % are.)
We bought our little baby bearded Dragon at petsmart. Why we bought him there?well lets say, we were young and silly or better lets say it was AFTER all those experiences that we realized the truth.
Anyways the little guy was sold as "fency bearded dragon" for 110 Dollar. idk but I think they sell any bearded dragon as "Fency". We "visited" him for about a week before we picked him up and in this week we got three different answers about his age. From "a couple weeks" to "3 or 4 months". (We now found out that he was only about 4 weeks at that point). They couldnt give us a lot of information and almost everything they told us was wrong. They sold us the Repti Glo and gave us a UVB light after I(!) mentioned it. And of course they gave us the advice to feed him mealworms. And 2(!!!) crickets a day! And theses advices came from an ex beardie owner. Poor little guy..thats probably why she HAD a bd :?
One day I thought Spikey had parasite(Luckily that was false alarm), so I called them and asked them if they would pay for the bill. They gave us a 14 day warranty.(I really dont like havin a "warranty" on something living..anyways) so they told me they wouldnt.Id have to bring him to petsmart and they would take care of him & then when he gets better I could get him back. I would never ever bring him back to petsmart. The enclosure was so small, loose crickets everywhere(in other tanks.Probably for those eating more than 2 crickets a day :x ), the humidity seemed pretty high(cause it was so small in there and he had a big water dish) and then theres the thing with the mealworms.
A few days ago we went there to buy new crickets and they had a new BD, he was so tiny and skinny.We asked about the age and the rediciolus answer was "ehm about 4- 5 month". I really had to crack a smile. You should have seen it. It looked like newly hatched.
We´re so happy cause we found a new pet store today. No -name, but they have all different kinds of worms and live foods there.They sell BD as well, and they live in big enclosures, with prober light and heat.And the baby ones (same age that spikey was when we got him) had a sign on the tank "Not ready to go home yet", which made me really happy. At least they dont try to sell the small, cute babys just to make a fast buck.

 

[WolfMama]

Hi I'm new here, and I came to ask a question but saw this topic.

I completely empathize with your experience, sugarcube!

We just adopted a beardie at PetSmart. If he hadn't touched my heart so much, and I had a very nice young man assisting me for the past 2 weeks, I would walked out based on an experience I had with 2 other employees yesterday. Also, I am disappointed with how some of the animals are housed at this particular PetSmart. But, the manager was very nice when I told him of my concerns.

I would suggest that you call the main office and lodge a complaint. You often don't want to go with just the manager, as you may get an assistant manager, or a manager who is the reason why the store is the way it is (thankfully, the manager at this store was nice and seemed to care about my comments). So, go to PetSmart's main site and call them to make a complaint. You'll feel better, and it just might make a difference. if not, you tried.

I'm disappointed to see that our PetSmart continually houses large numbers of baby bearded dragons in a 2.5 gallon tank. The baby beardie we'd been looking at for almsot 2 weeks had part of his tail bit off the other day they dumped in 6 new bearded dragons and one bit his tail

I'm new to beardies, but I know a lot about guinea pigs, and I was agitated to hear the ill advice an assistant manager gave a family about guinea pigs. So, I told the manager the next day. It did seem to matter to him.

As for the woman who wants to stunt her bearded dragon... why did she get one in the first place? That is very sad, and I think that is a problem. I asked a LOT of questions, and did research before we adopted him (this site is VERY good!). I still have questions.

I wonder how many people have no clue about the facts of these critters. I don't think people ask, and I don't think all employees bother to tell them.

If you come across that situation again, try to politely tell people how unhealthy it is for them to stunt their growth. The best you can do is express your concerns for the critter, and hope it gets through to them. Stay calm, and show concern.

Hope you feel better. Feel well in knowing that you care You must be a very good human beardie parent

 

[WolfMama]

Posted by moderator: Rudeness is not allowed anywhere on this forum so if you don't have something nice to say, please don't say anything at all. Name calling is not allowed either.

To the moderator:
Wow! It is good to see that you keep these forums cordial. That is very comforting to see. Hope it's okay that I posted this.

 

[Spikeshuman]

So.. I have experiences with both Petco and Petsmart. I got my Spike at Petco.. I know most of the employees there and they all seem to know a decent amount of info about their care. The employees have their own sections.. theres a fish lady.. a bird lady.. a few reptile people.. a lady that handles the small furry animals.. and two dog guys. I am sure there are cat people.. but since I don't have one.. I don't know. Since they have their own areas.. they know a good bit about the animals. At the Petsmart near me.. the animal care employees have to work with all.. fish.. small animal.. reptile.. bird.. at once. There are usually only two people there at any given time.. except weekends. Since they cover all animals.. I find that they know a lot less about them. One thing about the Petsmart near me that has been driving me nuts.. When I got Spike.. back in July.. he was about 5 inches or so. I assume he was around one month old. There was a baby pastel beardie at Petsmart at the same time. He had a crinkled dying tail.. about 2 inches of it. No one wanted to buy him... so he has sat there since July. He hasn't gotten more than an inch bigger.. he would be 6 inches or so.. but that crinkled tail finally fell off. I feel so bad because my Spike is now 14 inches.. and that poor guy is only 5. I go in there constantly to see him.. wishing I could save him.. but if I did that I would end up with hundreds of animals... the 15 that I have is more than enough. I don't get angry.. but I do mention things to the employees.. sometimes I get rude responses.. sometimes they appreciate what I have said. I once had to bring in documented proof that they had some cichlids miss-labeled.. and boy was that girl angry at me. I just didn't want someone buying a south american cichlid thinking it was african because their labels said so.. that would have caused a big problem down the road when it grew huge and ate all their other africans. Anyway.. all you can do is try to help!

 

[samphychippy]

That is why when i go in there i always go and look at the beardie thanks first, if there is something really wrong (besides the fact that its wayyyy to small) i go and tell someone. i dont care if they think im a crazy lizard lady cause i dont care what they think all i care about is that the beardies are heathy enough to get out of that store as fast as they can.
On a more general note though they dont take care of any of their pets correctly, the fish that i have purchased from petsmart have always died, i have 0 that lived and i watched a lady who was cleaning up after the cats pick up a kitten and throw her into her crate. the kitten hit her head on a metal box in the crate. You just really have to be careful when you go there if there is something seriously wrong tell them about it because just walking away and ignoreing the situation will not get better care. If petsmart as a company starts to get calls and letters and people talking to the managers then they will have to change in order to keep their money.

 

[BeardedDaddy]

Unless you go to a Reptile specific store that is usually run by the owner then you are usually going to be misinformed.. Sucks but it is what it is..

 

[jellybaby90]

yesterday I went to a local pet shop in town that normally only sells bunnies and fish, the norm..
when I went in I noticed a sign saying 'We now sell reptiles' obviously I was intrigued so I went straight to that section..
To my horror, I found what looked like a fish tank the size of a shoe box, with about 30 baby beardies piled on top of eachother, no log no nothing, all just piled up on the floor, one big basking lamp over the top, no uv or anything, no where to hide no nothing.. they looked miserable, I'm really tempted to ring RSPCA or something and get them out of there, it was horrible to see, there was no thermometers or anything, and in a tank that small with a basking light directly over the top god knows what temperature they're at in there!

 

[tgolden]

Posted by moderator: Rudeness is not allowed anywhere on this forum so if you don't have something nice to say, please don't say anything at all. Name calling is not allowed either.

Wow! Tommie, it is good to see that you keep these forums cordial. That is very comforting to see. Hope it's okay that I posted this.

It seems some people are easily offended Ooops!

 

[Tonja]

I go to petsmart regularly to purchase my dogs food, a high end food with no corn or icky stuff in it for them. I do stop to look at the beardies and noticed they are on reptile carpet, have fresh salads and tiny pinhead crickets in the tanks. Although the tanks are small there are 2-3 babies per tank and 2-3 tanks. They had a reptisun tube running over the tanks but had no basking light so I asked the manager about it, apparantly the basking light where they plugged in was malfunctioning. While I was standing there, she called for someone to get it fixed immediately as the babies were stressed, they were almost black with stress marks. Was a loose connection but it was fixed. i also asked about the water bowls as it could raise the humidity with the evaporation rate and it could cause URI's and was told " We did take the water bowls out of the cages but customers started complaining there was no water for the animals and it got so bad corporate was coming down hard on them about it as they were getting calls." So they put the water bowls back in. I told Deborah that they were to big and that the babies could drown so she took them out..got tiny water bowls and just barely filled them. Even though there were pinhead crickets in the cages, there were large crickets also so i asked Deb about that to and again it was due to customer complaint they were in there with the pinheads. Their tanks were spotless, no debris, no pooh and the basking logs were spotless resin logs. They take care of their animals in this petsmart and it shows. BUT this makes me wonder how much of what happens is actually customers making complaints about the care of the animal the customer knows nothing about, and due to those complaints things are done wrong to appease the customer. I am not saying this is the case in all pet stores but sure seems to be in the one I frequent and the one where i got my Emily from. Enough complaints to corporate, corporate comes down on the managers in the store and sets new policies for that store whether it be good for the animal or not. its all about pleasing the customer for repeat buisness.