In response to the PETA slide show that John Rich provided us yesterday,
I thought it only fair to allow PETCO to give their side of the story.  I
do not work for PETCO and never have.  I do believe in fairness and I do
not believe this list should be a pulpit for the AR agenda as some on the
list would like.  I don't think that any of us is perfect, nor do I think
that any one of us has all the answers to the ills of the pet trade;
either real, imagined or fabricated.  The Animal Rights agenda considers
Animal Welfare to be an obstruction to the demise of pet ownership.  Pet
ownership is considered to be "animal slavery" by Animal Rights doctrine
so some of you need to learn the difference between these two venues.
 
The following is a post from Mr. Jim Richardson;
 
Greetings Mr. White,
It was a pleasure to speak with you earlier today.  I appreciate the
opportunity to respond to the recent PETA press conference to release
a video about care standards at North American Pet Distributors (NAPD),
an animal distribution facility in the Minneapolis area.  As I mentioned
in our discussion, the video and the related PETA story mention that
many pet stores are supplied with animals from NAPD, however PETCO and
PETsMART were named specifically (PETCO most prominently).  NAPD is a
PETCO certified vendor.  Their facility has been inspected by PETCO on
numerous occasions, the last official visit was in July of this year.  At
this time, the facility met PETCO's Standard of Excellence certification.
Nonetheless, we take the allegations very seriously and are investigating
the contents of the video.  We have suspended business with NAPD pending
the outcome of our investigation, after which we will take all
appropriate actions.
 
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Animals always come first at PETCO.  I assure you, we will do whatever
it takes to make sure our animals are well cared for and safe.
 
Warm Regards,
Jim Richardson
Customer Relations/Contact Center  Supv.
PETCO
 
 
Dooks and  Blessings,
Rick White
[Posted in FML issue 4660]