Gilraen Took
01-31-2006, 11:32 PM
http://www.firsttankguide.net/stores.php
Unfortunately I have not EVER been to a pet store that has not broken multiples of these:( My response is going to be really longwinded. Skip through it if you like.
I do have one thing to add to this: Do they use pine/cedar bedding in small animal cages? If so those pets are likely to have respiratory and possibly kidney issues their entire lives, depending on how long they were in the store which equalls bigger vet bills for you.
Look at all of the animals there as well, if a store doesn't care about how it is treating one kind of animal, shouldn't it raise questions in your mind about what they are skimping on in respect to how it treats the animals it cares for better?
Also, do they ask you questions, or just sell whatever you want to you? A good pet store should ask you what sort of setup you have(especially with fish they should ask if your aquarium is cycled already/make sure it will be big enough for the fish you have selected) Do they tell you that the lionfish you are buying will eat that prize winning selection of inverts? Or that the school of tangs you are getting will tear each other to shreds soon? Do they let you know that it is only a wives tale that a fish will grow to "fit" its environment and so the little oscar you are getting now will outgrow that 20 gallon tank soon, or that the filter you have that is barely big enough for a tank that size will fail miserably at keeping the waste that your goldfish are producing to a minimum? When you buy a load of feeder fish(not a good thing, I'd rather breed them in a second home tank, so I know what they are eating, and so I know their health) do they tell you that a varied diet(including those wonderful packages of silversides, bloodworms ect) will be better than only a type of fish that your pet would not eat in the wild(aka, does that eel really swim into a freshwater lake every time it wants to eat so it will get goldfish? Really?) When you but an animal they should take the time to at least give you the basics of its care, yet the only places I have seen do that are petsmart/co and all they normally do is say what size cage to get(likely too small for birds, and I have never seen one say what size you need for a fish) tell you to use the store's brand of food and give you a care sheet that doesn't really say a whole lot. I know that it is hard to teach some people that they are killing their pet(I got yelled at one time for telling someone that her 2 5" goldfish would likely not live too long when she dumped fresh gravel into a 2 gallon tank set up and dumped the fish alone into it from a 10 gal. tank she was "tired of spending all that time/effort taking care of") but for every customer that you nicely let know that they are taking poor care of their animal that throws a fit, there are about 10-15 that will listen and change something for the health of their pets.
As for their list: Sadly I don't think that I have ever been in a pet store where all of the customers have been greeted promptly. The only one I am frequently greeted at is the petsmart(aka petsdumb IME) that I worked at. Then only by the people I worked WITH... When I worked AT a pet store, briefly as it was, I at least greeted everyone who walked through the doors. Unfortunately a lot of people don't realize that the more you make yourself available to help customers the more it helps them too. If a shoplifter sees someone standing within view at all times, jumping to help them, they are a bit less likely to grab something off the shelf and not pay for it.
Clean and neat I normally find, same as well lit, other than one that was in FL. Well, and that the 2 lfs here have poorly lit fish rooms. I know it make the tank lights brighte(and I know I am likely not to complain since I like dark rooms better than bright ones) but you can really barely see the labels in the one...
Almost all of the lfs that I have gone to have sick animals. Well, at least since I mostly look at rats and mice and they are"only feeders" so they aren't kept in the prisine conditions that the others are :doubt: As for the dead fish, I haven't seen many that have an overflow of those. There was a time though that the PS I worked at adopted out a sick cat(sh*tting blood, I told the manager, and she didn't even bother to put a sign on its cage or contact the humane society about it, that cat got adopted out 4 hours later, to someone who didn't know it was sick>.<) Also at petco the other day there was a mouse with a huge tumor on her arm. I told the manager(since one of the employees said she had and that they didn't do anything) he said he'd take her to their "vet(and I use that term extremely lightly) she was still in the display a few days later :evil: Also out of the rats I have gotten at petsmart, one had an ear infection that went untreated at the store, she still has a head tilt because of it, and all of the small animals I have seen there are sneezy. The PS had a lot of feeder goldfish on display one time that I was watching and I noticed one of them had a terrible case of fin rot(his tail and dorsal were almost totally gone) I told the person up front in the living animals section, and was told that it wouldn't matter that it was suffering because it would be eaten soon anyway. When I asked if that was dangerous for the fish that was eating it, she said that a fish could NOT catch any kinds of disease from a feeder fish. Yeah right. Plus there was the time they had a cocatoo that was on medication(and still being handfed) and was left on the sales floor.
Not much to say about quality of service, but I do know that the chain brands PS have are trash. The dry dog food has corn as a filler, and the small animal food has ethoxyquin, which is something to be avoided like the plague in small animal food which also cannot be avoided in low quality(sp>_>) fish food, since it is required to be in fish meal(yet another reason to get good quality foods for your pets). Its main purpose is a stabilizer for tire rubber, and is used as a cheap preservative.
I have yet to be to a lfs that doesn't have painted fish
The pet store I got my first rat from told me she would be happy in a 3 level crittertrail cage. She outgrew it quite quickly. She is now, along with the rest of the mischief, in a homemade one that is huge. I heard from one that a mouse will do great on hamster food(I make my own food, and it is a nutritionally correct one for the animals, no commercial food other than rat food) and that they would do good in houses way too small even for a mouse. I've been told that 3 LARGE fish would do okay in a 10 gallon tank indefinately(my 2 oscars and firemouth. I was asking about tank size and the lady said they would do great in a 10 gal. or "if" they outgrew it that a 20 would be fine), or that I could keep agressive fish(like dwarf cichlids) in one. I've been told that the ONLY way to get corals to live is in a tank with a strong current over them and a LOT of light(the ones I'm looking at are considered moderate light/flow, not strong) I have also been told that predatory fish(eels, cichlids lions ect) MUST be given a diet soley of feeder fish for their health.
More for the store I got my first rattie from, he told me that a betta is better off in a small container like what they sell for them because they live in "holes in rice patties made by oxen stepping into the mud, thus they are happier in the small containers and get paranoid in larger ones" While 2 out of 3 of my bettas are happy in 1 gal. bowls with plants, the 3rd was rather unhappy. Now that he is in my 20 gal. community tank he is happy as can be. One of these days I'll hopefully move the other 2 up into larger tanks as well. I'm sure they'd be thrilled.
I've never tried to diagnose a pet at a pet store, though I do know that the "vet" that petsmart and petco use(because he offers free services) and recomend(or are required to say is the "Only vet in town that will treat small animals") is a complete and utter moron. Seriously, I took my rats there one time, and if I hadn't known better than to trust his "expert advice" I'd have ended up with a rat who died of a RI, and 2 that were(healthy at the time) crippled, if not dead of food poisoning. Too bad I didn't know at the time that if a vet was terrible you could refuse payment, otherwise I would have.
Small animals should be included in the guarantee too. There was a girl I knew in FL who had bought a rabbit from a pet store(it was a feeder) and when it died 2 days later, from an illness they didn't know it had, the store refused to refund her money because it was "only a feeder"
I had never heard the no dumping thing about water. Until I started doing research on the fish I had I had thought that you acclimate the fish to your water(a bit more hasty the way I do it for my freshies) and then dump everything in the bag into the tank...
The only place I have seen the blue water in is petsmart, and I think that it is mostly just quick cure in the water>_>
I have also NEVER EVER seen a petstore that suggests that you cycle without feeders/damsels depending on the sort of tank it will be.
I'd only ever heard not to try feeder goldies as pets from one place, and he was brutally honest about it. He said that they are kept in sh*tty conditions, are overproduced and sickly as a result. That to try to keep them would be to have a lot of dead fish.
Unfortunately I have not EVER been to a pet store that has not broken multiples of these:( My response is going to be really longwinded. Skip through it if you like.
I do have one thing to add to this: Do they use pine/cedar bedding in small animal cages? If so those pets are likely to have respiratory and possibly kidney issues their entire lives, depending on how long they were in the store which equalls bigger vet bills for you.
Look at all of the animals there as well, if a store doesn't care about how it is treating one kind of animal, shouldn't it raise questions in your mind about what they are skimping on in respect to how it treats the animals it cares for better?
Also, do they ask you questions, or just sell whatever you want to you? A good pet store should ask you what sort of setup you have(especially with fish they should ask if your aquarium is cycled already/make sure it will be big enough for the fish you have selected) Do they tell you that the lionfish you are buying will eat that prize winning selection of inverts? Or that the school of tangs you are getting will tear each other to shreds soon? Do they let you know that it is only a wives tale that a fish will grow to "fit" its environment and so the little oscar you are getting now will outgrow that 20 gallon tank soon, or that the filter you have that is barely big enough for a tank that size will fail miserably at keeping the waste that your goldfish are producing to a minimum? When you buy a load of feeder fish(not a good thing, I'd rather breed them in a second home tank, so I know what they are eating, and so I know their health) do they tell you that a varied diet(including those wonderful packages of silversides, bloodworms ect) will be better than only a type of fish that your pet would not eat in the wild(aka, does that eel really swim into a freshwater lake every time it wants to eat so it will get goldfish? Really?) When you but an animal they should take the time to at least give you the basics of its care, yet the only places I have seen do that are petsmart/co and all they normally do is say what size cage to get(likely too small for birds, and I have never seen one say what size you need for a fish) tell you to use the store's brand of food and give you a care sheet that doesn't really say a whole lot. I know that it is hard to teach some people that they are killing their pet(I got yelled at one time for telling someone that her 2 5" goldfish would likely not live too long when she dumped fresh gravel into a 2 gallon tank set up and dumped the fish alone into it from a 10 gal. tank she was "tired of spending all that time/effort taking care of") but for every customer that you nicely let know that they are taking poor care of their animal that throws a fit, there are about 10-15 that will listen and change something for the health of their pets.
As for their list: Sadly I don't think that I have ever been in a pet store where all of the customers have been greeted promptly. The only one I am frequently greeted at is the petsmart(aka petsdumb IME) that I worked at. Then only by the people I worked WITH... When I worked AT a pet store, briefly as it was, I at least greeted everyone who walked through the doors. Unfortunately a lot of people don't realize that the more you make yourself available to help customers the more it helps them too. If a shoplifter sees someone standing within view at all times, jumping to help them, they are a bit less likely to grab something off the shelf and not pay for it.
Clean and neat I normally find, same as well lit, other than one that was in FL. Well, and that the 2 lfs here have poorly lit fish rooms. I know it make the tank lights brighte(and I know I am likely not to complain since I like dark rooms better than bright ones) but you can really barely see the labels in the one...
Almost all of the lfs that I have gone to have sick animals. Well, at least since I mostly look at rats and mice and they are"only feeders" so they aren't kept in the prisine conditions that the others are :doubt: As for the dead fish, I haven't seen many that have an overflow of those. There was a time though that the PS I worked at adopted out a sick cat(sh*tting blood, I told the manager, and she didn't even bother to put a sign on its cage or contact the humane society about it, that cat got adopted out 4 hours later, to someone who didn't know it was sick>.<) Also at petco the other day there was a mouse with a huge tumor on her arm. I told the manager(since one of the employees said she had and that they didn't do anything) he said he'd take her to their "vet(and I use that term extremely lightly) she was still in the display a few days later :evil: Also out of the rats I have gotten at petsmart, one had an ear infection that went untreated at the store, she still has a head tilt because of it, and all of the small animals I have seen there are sneezy. The PS had a lot of feeder goldfish on display one time that I was watching and I noticed one of them had a terrible case of fin rot(his tail and dorsal were almost totally gone) I told the person up front in the living animals section, and was told that it wouldn't matter that it was suffering because it would be eaten soon anyway. When I asked if that was dangerous for the fish that was eating it, she said that a fish could NOT catch any kinds of disease from a feeder fish. Yeah right. Plus there was the time they had a cocatoo that was on medication(and still being handfed) and was left on the sales floor.
Not much to say about quality of service, but I do know that the chain brands PS have are trash. The dry dog food has corn as a filler, and the small animal food has ethoxyquin, which is something to be avoided like the plague in small animal food which also cannot be avoided in low quality(sp>_>) fish food, since it is required to be in fish meal(yet another reason to get good quality foods for your pets). Its main purpose is a stabilizer for tire rubber, and is used as a cheap preservative.
I have yet to be to a lfs that doesn't have painted fish
The pet store I got my first rat from told me she would be happy in a 3 level crittertrail cage. She outgrew it quite quickly. She is now, along with the rest of the mischief, in a homemade one that is huge. I heard from one that a mouse will do great on hamster food(I make my own food, and it is a nutritionally correct one for the animals, no commercial food other than rat food) and that they would do good in houses way too small even for a mouse. I've been told that 3 LARGE fish would do okay in a 10 gallon tank indefinately(my 2 oscars and firemouth. I was asking about tank size and the lady said they would do great in a 10 gal. or "if" they outgrew it that a 20 would be fine), or that I could keep agressive fish(like dwarf cichlids) in one. I've been told that the ONLY way to get corals to live is in a tank with a strong current over them and a LOT of light(the ones I'm looking at are considered moderate light/flow, not strong) I have also been told that predatory fish(eels, cichlids lions ect) MUST be given a diet soley of feeder fish for their health.
More for the store I got my first rattie from, he told me that a betta is better off in a small container like what they sell for them because they live in "holes in rice patties made by oxen stepping into the mud, thus they are happier in the small containers and get paranoid in larger ones" While 2 out of 3 of my bettas are happy in 1 gal. bowls with plants, the 3rd was rather unhappy. Now that he is in my 20 gal. community tank he is happy as can be. One of these days I'll hopefully move the other 2 up into larger tanks as well. I'm sure they'd be thrilled.
I've never tried to diagnose a pet at a pet store, though I do know that the "vet" that petsmart and petco use(because he offers free services) and recomend(or are required to say is the "Only vet in town that will treat small animals") is a complete and utter moron. Seriously, I took my rats there one time, and if I hadn't known better than to trust his "expert advice" I'd have ended up with a rat who died of a RI, and 2 that were(healthy at the time) crippled, if not dead of food poisoning. Too bad I didn't know at the time that if a vet was terrible you could refuse payment, otherwise I would have.
Small animals should be included in the guarantee too. There was a girl I knew in FL who had bought a rabbit from a pet store(it was a feeder) and when it died 2 days later, from an illness they didn't know it had, the store refused to refund her money because it was "only a feeder"
I had never heard the no dumping thing about water. Until I started doing research on the fish I had I had thought that you acclimate the fish to your water(a bit more hasty the way I do it for my freshies) and then dump everything in the bag into the tank...
The only place I have seen the blue water in is petsmart, and I think that it is mostly just quick cure in the water>_>
I have also NEVER EVER seen a petstore that suggests that you cycle without feeders/damsels depending on the sort of tank it will be.
I'd only ever heard not to try feeder goldies as pets from one place, and he was brutally honest about it. He said that they are kept in sh*tty conditions, are overproduced and sickly as a result. That to try to keep them would be to have a lot of dead fish.