Do you ever...

[Starwild]

...complain about poor animal care at local pet stores?

Tonight I was in my local store and the geckos looked really awful. They're kept on shredded bark, with overhead heat, several had dropped tails and one was sitting in the water dish and looked sick. They didn't have a calcium dish or humid hide, either.

I wrote the store a letter and included this forum's web address and a care sheet! I hope they will listen and change their ways. Probably not, but at least I tried. In any case, I'm not buying supplies from them until they fix the problems, I don't want to support stores that don't take proper care of their animals.

 

[fallen_angel]

I agree, and I have nothing against people that want to buy a sickly leo and try to save it - bless their hearts!! But personally, I feel that buying these reptiles in their sick condition just adds to the problem, so I refuse to buy any animals from a pet store if the conditions are questionable. Pet stores are supposed to be the ones that take the best of care of animals; but of course, that is just not the case.

Good for you for sending them a care sheet (if they never come to this site, they should at least take the time to read the sheet!), that's a good idea :main_thumbsup:

 

[Mel&Keith]

That's about the best you can do! Sometimes complaining does help. I was picking up dog food at a pet store one day and some of the reptile display cages were broken so that they couldn't be opened (which I'm sure made it hard to feed of water anything!) and they had crested and leopard geckos housed together. I emailed the company and the problem at the store was fixed immediately, they even emailed me back about it.

 

[mcvancleave]

I tried to say something once about the lack of care of a gecko. After I saw there was no care in the employee I basically helped out the pet store by buying the gecko from them. Told the manager if they were not going to save his live I would. He told me he has to trust that department because he does not know a lot about reptiles thanked me and was kind enough to offer a discount due to the condition of the gecko.