Pet Store Neglect
By: Lisa Selvaggio
This article also featured in the September 2009 The Animals Voice E-Newsletter
Walking through a corporate pet store, such as Petsmart, seems to invoke in me the same emotions I get when I see animals in cages at a shelter. The look of sadness in their eyes, the longing for a home and companionship, exists even in these places. What gets me the most are the beautiful exotic birds that are kept in their 2-cubic-feet cages. These are social animals that love people and enjoy interaction, yet for months on end, I return to the store to find the same $600 bird looking at me through the plastic wall of his enclosure, craving attention, almost begging me to play with him. I feel like putting these animals all on my credit card and taking them home with me, but I know that another batch is waiting right behind them; replacements that would feel the same confinement and isolation.
I refuse to purchase animals from corporate pet stores like Petsmart and Petco, and even the pet stores found in malls. I have even stopped buying fish from them. The horror stories found online of animal rights groups' investigations of not only the sources from which they obtain their animals but also the treatment thereafter are enough to stop any intelligent, animal-loving person from giving their money to such scum who view living creatures as objects and profit-making machines, expendable with a low per-unit cost. The only noble thing these stores do is allow adoption centers to bring their animals in for show in the hopes that they'll find homes. Other than that, I've been an eyewitness of too many negligible acts that have put animals' lives at risk at Petsmart and Petco locations in my area. And despite my multiple letters of complaint, nothing ever seems to change. So I go to Petsmart (as it does seem to be the lesser of the two evils) for supplies every now and then, still hating the fact I'm contributing even in this indirect way, and each time, my belief that people need to rethink pet stores--pet store chains in particular--and begin to see that these are not places where animals thrive, is reinforced.
On one occasion, a fish tank was full of dead fish, with hardly any room left for those few still alive. Then there was the snake whose enclosure's temperature was above the maximum level for that species. There was an instance where an employee misdiagnosed a clearly dead reptile as one that was merely sleeping. Another night, a cage full of free-flight parakeets were searching desperately for food in their nearly empty dishes that contained nothing but shells. Often, I'll bring these issues up to associates. Sometimes, as in the case of the parakeets, which took place before the store was going to close, it seemed as though the person I told might actually do something about it. But most of the time, the sales associates are untrained teenagers who think that what I'm bringing up is not an issue of concern at all.
Use the search term "animals" in a major job search engine like CareerBuilder.com or Monster.com and what you will probably get is a slew of Petco and Petsmart job openings. They're looking for groomers, managers, sales associates, and more, but the only thing you need for some positions that work directly with animals is a high school education and no specialization in animal care whatsoever. The requirements are frighteningly lax for sales associates, who are trained not just in one area so they can gain some level of expertise, but rather in all areas of the store. The result: a jack-of-all-trades that really knows nothing substantial about any area of care for animals. It's bad enough that consumers walk into these stores thinking that delicate, complex species of birds and reptiles are easy to care for; what's worse is that they don't even get the chance to be educated because the people who work at these locations are as uneducated about these complexities as they are. The animal is brought home, fed a poor diet, neglected, and you know how the rest goes.
At my most recent visit to Petsmart, I happened to walk by a hairless rat whose eyelids were bleeding from his incessant scratching. A woman interested in holding, possibly purchasing, the rat asked a sales rep about the blood and he replied, "Well that's nothing. That's just because they don't have any hair." When she asked about where they get them from, if from breeders specifically, he replied, "Oh, well, we get all our animals from our corporate supplier, and they have to go through screenings to make sure everything's okay." I could tell that he'd probably been trained by his manager to say those exact words if the issue of where they obtain their animals from ever came up, and I could tell even more that he clearly had no concern for an animal that had some type of health issue. A part of me really hoped this woman would buy the rat and bring it home with her to be with her other rats to be happy and healthy, yet that other side of me once again knew that this rat sold buys another to suffer in the store.
It's time we look not only at the value of animal life, but the value of our money as well. We have the power to force change by choosing where we spend our money. The lack of mom-and-pop pet supply stores in my area is disturbing, especially because it forces me to go to corporate chains to make my purchases. The animal liberator in me nags that animals probably shouldn't be kept as pets, since humans often do more harm than good, especially when it comes to taking care of their health and keeping them sane and happy in large enough enclosures. I firmly believe that certain species, particularly reptiles and birds, really shouldn't be kept as pets at all, since the artificial lives they lead confined in cages in our homes are not adequate, despite our best efforts to mimic Nature. Nevertheless, I have seen independently owned and operated facilities that truly do care about the animals they sell and who really know what they're doing. I've even seen wonderful holistic establishments that provide alternatives to conventional veterinary treatment, and I think that that's what we need more of, so long as humans will be keeping animals as pets. Corporate pet stores, with their discount rates and heterogeneous inventory of animals need to only sell supplies to help consumers get the best value for their money and they should leave the rearing and selling of animals to caring individuals who will not exploit and factory-farm animals for profit. We need more education so that people realize the true needs of animals, and we need to make sure that only those individuals who can truly afford, not only in a monetary sense but also in the sense that they have the time and energy to devote to care for animals, will purchase them.
It's time that we, as animal activists, realize that we don't only need to educate the public on spay/neuter and adoption programs, but also on the need to realize that certain species should not be sold as pets at all, and more importantly, that no species should be sold in any corporate store at all. Really looking into the eyes of these animals, whether it's a Betta forced to be still in a cup or a Finch that is clearly still completely wild, should prove to anyone that humanity's selfish need for animal companionship is never worth their suffering.