ladysprite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysprite) wrote2004-03-27 11:35 am
ladysprite) wrote2004-03-27 11:35 am
A Heaping Handful of Righteous Ire
Someday, when the last pet store in the world has been burned to the ground, I will gather together every child who has ever suffered and lost a pet from their callous and mercenary attitude, and we will dance the hokey-pokey on the store's ashes as we sow the earth with salt.
I have had it up to my eyebrows with pet store puppies dripping with mange and kennel cough and worms. I am fed up with half-starved lizards and rats with pneumonia. And yesterday, euthanizing a bird that had only been out of the store for five days because it was too sick to move, too weak to perch, and so emaciated that I could use it's keel as a cheese knife - the third bird in this situation within the past three months - it took all of my willpower and then some to avoid marching down to the pet store myself and unleashing my wrath on the manager there.
I am a nonviolent person. I have no intentions of beating him black and blue, though that does hold a certain appeal right now. All I want to do is grab him by the ear, march him back to the clinic, and sit him down in front of the four-year-old boy who was sobbing his heart out and asking me if his bird was dying because he was bad. And Mister Marvelous Pet Store Manager can explain to this child that no, he was a good boy, and the bird was just dying because the store didn't care, and knew they could turn a profit anyway. I'm sure that'll make the kid feel much better.
The store's involvement ends when the animal leaves the door. They don't have to deal with the frustration and the heartbreak and the pain that comes when people get attatched to an animal that winds up in ICU less than a week later. They graciously offer to take the animal back and give them a new one - they don't understand, I guess, the difference between a living creature and a slipcover. And this is why slipcovers should be sold in chain stores, and living creatures shouldn't.
Meanwhile, I mop up their messes, and I call their managers, and I tell them about the problems. And they recite the carefully-worded statements they're given from on-high, pointing out that since I didn't see the animal when it was sold, I can't prove that it was sold in that condition, and no formal action can be taken. And I sit, and I seethe, and then I move on to my next appointment and hope that maybe at least now there's one more family that will never buy from a pet store again.
Damnit.
I have had it up to my eyebrows with pet store puppies dripping with mange and kennel cough and worms. I am fed up with half-starved lizards and rats with pneumonia. And yesterday, euthanizing a bird that had only been out of the store for five days because it was too sick to move, too weak to perch, and so emaciated that I could use it's keel as a cheese knife - the third bird in this situation within the past three months - it took all of my willpower and then some to avoid marching down to the pet store myself and unleashing my wrath on the manager there.
I am a nonviolent person. I have no intentions of beating him black and blue, though that does hold a certain appeal right now. All I want to do is grab him by the ear, march him back to the clinic, and sit him down in front of the four-year-old boy who was sobbing his heart out and asking me if his bird was dying because he was bad. And Mister Marvelous Pet Store Manager can explain to this child that no, he was a good boy, and the bird was just dying because the store didn't care, and knew they could turn a profit anyway. I'm sure that'll make the kid feel much better.
The store's involvement ends when the animal leaves the door. They don't have to deal with the frustration and the heartbreak and the pain that comes when people get attatched to an animal that winds up in ICU less than a week later. They graciously offer to take the animal back and give them a new one - they don't understand, I guess, the difference between a living creature and a slipcover. And this is why slipcovers should be sold in chain stores, and living creatures shouldn't.
Meanwhile, I mop up their messes, and I call their managers, and I tell them about the problems. And they recite the carefully-worded statements they're given from on-high, pointing out that since I didn't see the animal when it was sold, I can't prove that it was sold in that condition, and no formal action can be taken. And I sit, and I seethe, and then I move on to my next appointment and hope that maybe at least now there's one more family that will never buy from a pet store again.
Damnit.
no subject
We adopted Luna, Farouche and Selena from a cat "sanctuary" in town. We figured the cats would be coming from a place that had a good record and good kitties because of what we'd seen there (we'd gone to an open house, tremendous response from the public) and from talking to them.
Farouche died 5 days after we brought him home, from effusive FIP (confirmed by autopsy).
We adopted Selena about a week after he died, from the same place. All three were littermates. She died on Christmas day from dry FIP, just 3 months after we brought her home (not confirmed by autopsy, but clinical symptoms were consistent).
Luna continues to be her annoying self, lovable, sweet and annoying. Her FIP status is unknown.
Based on what the shelter told us, both of the vets we used for Selena and Farouche (one was the shelter practice, the second was independent), this place has a serious FIP problem. No fewer than 8 cats died from FIP in a 1 month period. Yet nobody ever says anything about this shelter but how great they are. No wonder they didn't balk at paying for Farouche's bills at their own vet, they must be used to it by now.
Yes, it is really nice to see a large, old home in the city filled with free-roaming cats, looking at you from the window perches the shelter has. But it makes me sick to think of how many of them are sick and dying because the damned place doesn't care enough to bleach litterboxes and the "kitten rooms" when there have been sick cats in them. Oh, I could rant on and on. I was calling the place a cat factory, which is so close to how they are at pet stores.
Bastards. All of 'em.
I hope that little boy learns that he didn't do anything wrong, and his parents get him another bird (from a reputable dealer!) and he can bond with it. That bothered me the most (and was the one thing we were grateful for with our ordeal - that we didn't have children to be subjected to this).