Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that there are far too many
poorly run pet stores in Massachusetts.  I went into a pet store in
Fitchburg and they had an unbelievable 13, yes 13 puppies in one
8' x 9' (estimate) box/room.
 
There was feces and urine everywhere and all the puppies were sluggish
and wanted nothing to do with me when I put my hand down into the box.
The whole store smelled so awful, it was really sad.  I had been there
before and what's sad is that they have been open for at least a year if
not longer and each time I had gone in previous to this last, they still
hadn't gotten what they needed to be able to sell animals, but they were
clean and they had their personal animals and a few others(from where I
don't know).  Point is, they were a fairly decent place until they were
given permission or whatever to sell
animals.
 
Isn't it someone's job to take a look at these places and see that this
doesn't happen?  I was absolutely mortified and i almost broke down
crying for these babies.  Not to mention that when I looked at the
ferrets, they were in a big box of pine shavings and their food didn't
look edible.  They looked sick and one was walking very funny.  They have
had the albino ferret since I first went in there but at the time it was
their personal ferret, not for sale.  Now, it's for sale.  It angers me
and makes me want to take them all home with me!  There was another pet
store in about the same area (its now closed) but they kept putting male
and female rats together and what started out as maybe 100 rats became a
completely horrible mass rat baby boom or something.  We went in a few
more times and each time there were at least another 150 rats.  The last
time we went, they had maybe 20 "tanks" of rats and each tank had at
least 20-25 full grown rats and almost half of those had a litter going
plus rats that had been born a few weeks prior were now running around.
It was horrible.
 
Now, the main reason I wrote this is because I was reading posts about
Petcos.  The Petcos in my area aren't that bad but it depends on who
they have working for them at the time.  To too many people, working at
a pet store is merely a stupid job and they could care less about the
animals as long as they are getting paid.  And as far as mentioning
something t o one of the employees (not at Petco, at Debby's Pet Land)
the last time I tried I got "yelled" at so to speak in front of everyone
in the store.  I walked in and was looking at the puppies (I usually
take them out to play with them when I go to the mall) and I noticed that
a few of them were eating their poop and all the cages were dirty.  It
was about 7:30pm or so and I made a comment to my boyfriend about how
they obviously looked hungry (I know dogs eat poop, i have 2 of my own,
but its usually the cat poop out of the litter box, lol)  The woman
working was walking by and over heard the comment to my boyfriend and
she says loudly "Ya we don't feed them, what do you think we are,
stupid?!" in front of everyone else in the store (mortifying me) and
then.... SHE PROMPTLY GOES AND FEEDS THE PUPPIES!  I mean come on!
Grrrrrr.
 
Sorry about the long post, but I was curious as to what people thought
and if they had noticed the same types of issues/bad conditions in the
Massachusetts area or anywhere else.  It absolutely saddens me that its
ok for animals to have to put up with this.
 
"Ask yourself: How can you be so cruel to something, when it  can't even
defend itself?"
 
[TA]
[Posted in FML issue 5115]