>From:    [log in to unmask]
>
>>We were very shocked to see the information put out by PETA about one
>>of our suppliers, so myself, two other veterinarians from our Quality
>>Assurance team, and several executives flew out yesterday to the
>>Rainbow Exotics facility unannounced. We thoroughly review all of
>>the facilities and their practices. Much to our relief, we found
>>the facility to be in good order. Without going into details, I
>>can honestly say that much of the PETA propaganda was "staged".  

>This explains a lot LOL. I half wondered if PETA wasn't behind this
>and since they are - you can't really believe anything that is being
>said. PETA maybe a couple years ago struck up a bargain with PETCO to
>get them to back off their HUGE PETNO campaign. PETA used to have a
>whole section of their site devoted to a campaign against PETCO. Now
>they are "friends" with PETCO and their campaign (with pretty much
>all the same stuff....just changed the name of the store) is against
>PETsMART. If for no other reason, why believe an organization that
>flipflops like that?

One thing - remember that veterinarians are there in support of
Petsmart. They are there for basic services. They do not treat all
animals in pain nor do they require pain medications be given, or
treatment be given at all if they desire. That vet is there to give
an "okay", simply because they need a vet to say that.

All vets are not equal. She could be a great vet, but to just
assume that she has the same standards as us on the FML is wrong.
Veterinarians are not all "healers" and there to end suffering; if
they were, breeding programs would not exist.

Same thing with vets at Petsmart's Banfield. They will avoid treating
Petsmart animals sometimes, so that Petsmart's that have a Banfield in
them (the veterinarian partnered with Petsmart) can't even use them and
have to bring the animals to an outside vet.

Also, only Petsmarts with 24 hour kennels have on call vets. Otherwise
animals are just on a wait and see basis. If the animal is going to
die, it will just die, no ifs and or buts. And it dies in the back.
Managers say they will do something about it, but leave it on other
people, blame gets passed around. Corporate does not care unless many
customers complain.

The problem is Petsmart is always afraid of getting sued by employees
so they love to gloss over employee misbehavior and neglect.

Also, you mention Petsmart's being attacked by PETA. Well, on the
employee network at Petsmart you can pull up tons of info on that
"attack" and how they trained people to respond to protester and
questions from the media if you were interviewed by reporters, what
to say, not to say.

If Petsmart honestly thought they were being attacked by PETA, there
would have been different sorts of material. Petsmart has no bad stance
against PETA - company and manager memos stated the facts and why PETA
was protesting, and that the company needed to change it's ways, lock
back doors.

PETA has legitimate claims against Petco and Petsmart, documented by
back room evidence. Yes, it is true the animals usually do not recieve
vet care, or even adequate food or water. Employees will often feed
bird food to hamsters, forgo the daily requirements of veggies to get
around doing dishes and cutting up fruits and vegetables, and underfeed
groups of animals while overfeeding single animals. Medications are
skipped. Fish in the aquariums are supposed to get certain foods, often
I saw people just giving tropical flakes to all fish. Also, the main
means of managers making sure things got done are checklists in each
room and by the aquarium. Check off 20 things for each one and initial
each, and you are done. The managers make sure the animals cages are
clean (they are supposed to but often this is overlooked until it's
very bad), make sure none were left without food and water (with so
many cages, sometimes you forget one - I forgot ONE when a dealer came
in and brought in animals, which is why the buddy system and managers
are the greatest thing in the world when they care. Also any animals
not fed or watered would get fed later but I would have noticed an hour
later in my checks. Checks are needed because hamsters fight a LOT in
the small cages).

The real problem is that a great Petsmart will come from a good manager
who cares about the rules. Petsmart has WONDERFUL written rules and
regulations, and if followed, all animals would have wonderful lives
there while in Petsmart's care. It is only because managers do not
enforce these rules and regulations, and leave the blame on the Pet
Care Manager (and solely on them) - that Petsmart is what it is.

And about the inspection - PETA does not need to fake problems for
attention. A solution would be continued UNANNOUNCED inspections,
but that isn't going to happen. Retail is retail. We all know how
inspections go, you screw up, you get one, life goes on. At the
Petsmart I was at, one tactic was always done once a month if not three
- district managers would call us and tell us they were on their way
for inspection, and they'd never show. However, lots of overdue tasks
were done that day, things that should have been kept up every day.

Also video cameras set up to record a week of tape would be an equally
great deterrent to animal abuse - tapes reviewed by an outside source -
but that will never happen either.

It is a sad world we live in.

For who asked if Petco and Petsmart were the same thing, no, but in
general yes both can carry ferrets. Petsmart pulled a lot of ferrets
out of stores last year due to neglect problems and customer
complaints; also if there is a rescue that comes in to adopt out
ferrets once a month, they will discontinue ferrets at the store.

I don't think any of the PETA stuff really matters about Petsmart -
other than yes they got animals from them. All blame goes solely to
Rainbow - why drag Petsmart into it? Petsmart of course gets tons of
their animals from Rainbow. They could not change vendors quickly
without loss of stock and therefore money at stores. Of course they
will have their vet approve it. This is not right, it needs to be
evaluated by another agency - problem is, there really isn't one that
deals with this kind of thing effectively, nor is there true monitoring
available. Even at Petsmart you have a whistleblower number you can
call at any time; I never used it, but it's there. What is there at
Rainbow??

A last thought - Petsmart vets are there to help the company make
money. Also, they are the ones who approved the fish increase of spring
2007 through summer - disregarding the very basic rules of "required
water per inch of fish", because it would make the company more money.
Fish were already overpopulated in all tanks - then they doubled
shipments because more fish at a time is cheaper shipping and same
amount of work each Friday - so why not? Well, tons of fish died after
getting acclimated because of overcrowding. It doesn't matter how good
the filtration is (another horror of bad water due to unmanaged pet
care workers who don't understand what they are doing and just fake
test results - the real results, dead fish that were supposed to be
cleaned up, not cleaned up, manager doesn't check, they clog the
filter overnight, causing a chain reaction of death and a flooded fish
department with live and dead fish all over the floor in the morning,
along with power cords running along it in the back (not kidding, I
could not believe they were stomping around in the water with the cords
like that, I took a broom and picked them up). I scooped as many fish
as I could back into the other tanks, but overall over a week 80 to 100
fish a day were dying due to overcrowding just in goldfish alone; all
other fish combined, 20 to 30 (should have been normally, 5 to 6
goldfish + 2-5 fish a day).

I could go on and on about what things were wrong at Petsmart. But I'd
rather say that with good management and supervision, it could be
great. The vision is there, with the written regulations - it's just
not being executed properly.

As for PETA and Petco, Petco actually rehauled many of it's programs
and retrained people; they also put animals out for adoption instead
of keeping them in the back rooms forever or until they are "culled".
There are many differences in the companies now. PETA likes when
someone tries, and PETCO tried, and changed.

Laryssa

[Posted in FML 5865]