A Heaping Handful of Righteous Ire
Mar. 27th, 2004 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteSomeday, 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.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-27 09:21 am (UTC)Can't you report the store to the animal control folks for not taking sufficient care of their animals? Or are the the authorities swamped and happy to swallow the lie from management?
Failing a report to the authorities type action, why not write to you local newspapers - all of 'em? And maybe the TV stations. And perhaps draft a big ol' informative poster to go up in your clinic about the hazards of buying from a pet-store and why a person might want to try their local shelter, first?
The police might take exception to your burning the stores down, but driving them out of business via grassroots means, not a problem. ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-27 11:30 am (UTC)As for writing to newspapers and putting up posters, big chain petstores can afford better lawyers than I can, and I have no interest in bankrupting myself and possibly losing my license - unfortunately, I can't *prove* that they're selling sick animals (since I don't see the animals immediately after purchase), and as a professional in the industry I'm held to higher standards of accuracy in issues like that. It's a lousy place to be, and it makes me feel like a coward, but the best that I can do is rant in my own journal about the general state of pet stores and encourage anyone who asks me specifically to look for a different place to acquire a pet. :(
no subject
Date: 2004-03-27 02:23 pm (UTC)Can you at least post an "informative notice" in the clinic suggesting that anyone who buys a pet from a store *immediately* takes it to their vet for a checkup? Or is even that actionable?
no subject
Date: 2004-03-28 10:06 am (UTC)animals immediately after purchase)
It takes more than 5 days to starve a bird to emaciation, doesn't it? Surely some diseases have incubation periods, such that the literature would back you if you reported "Receipt for animal dated 1/1, animal dies on 1/3 of a disease with a 10 day incubation. Ergo..."
Are there no inspection regulations for pet stores? I would think for the simple reason of safety for humans there are some basic regulations. Are there not? Would agitating for stricter inspection laws help?
Also, while you certainly don't want to pit yourself against the pet store lawyers, some of your clients -- who are the other wronged parties -- surely must be pretty pissed. In cases where an animal was sold with an infectious disease to a home which already had another animal, couldn't the customer sue not only for replacement, but for the endangerment of their other animals?
You'd think someday one of these puppy mills would wind up killing the dogs of some ambulance-chasing lawyer.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-28 06:34 pm (UTC)As for incubation periods, that would depend on me being able to confirm the exact disease responsible. There are a *lot* of things that can cause the same signs in birds, and almost all of them are nearly impossible to diagnose. (Birds are notoriously difficult to catch definitive diagnoses for - any given test is about 50% accurate. It sucks, and we're working on new tests, but that's all we have right now). I've been sending the bodies out for testing, but all the tests have come back inconclusive, so I don't have a leg to stand on against the store. It would be great if the owners decided to sue, but I can't bring it up or encourage them, and if they did I really can't safely testify on their behalf.
I've investigated this as much as I can, trying to find a safe way to help get this under control - but it seems like all I can do is hold people's hands while I tell them their new pet is sick, tell them it's not their fault, and make sure they don't make the same mistake twice. Damnit.