Petland? Extremely irritated.

[NightmareWolfie1]

I went to Petland with some friends the other day.
Now, the Petland by our house is really nice. All the animals are well groomed, happy, and cared for as well as can be expected.
The rats are in tanks, but there are usually not more than two per tank.
The mice are overcrowded, but they have lots of toys, and always clean bedding.
They keep them on aspen or carefresh.
But they keep all male hamsters, which causes fighting, and that irks me.
Onto the point, we went to a Petland further away.
The dogs smelled bad, it smelled bad as soon as you walked in. The rabbits were overcrowded.
They were selling Natal Rats, which just irks me. Because people are going to buy them thinking they are cute, butr they make horrible pets for kids and the like.
The rats were in one of those huge stands that they keep the rabbits and ferrets in.
There were only two, on carefresh with toys and such.
I picked them both up. A pretty black berk BOY and a beige banded rex GIRL.
Irritated, I asked aren't they supposed to carry only one sex?
The guy was super nice, if not stupid. And said they don't. They get shipped like that.
And inside a tank right next to them were very, very curly black sheepy babies.
The previous litter of the mom.
The cage was BEYONG huge enough to hold them, as there were only four and they were tiny.
But they were too young to be away from mommy, and mom was prolly already pregnant again.
They were advertised as dumbo, I guess because they hadn't changed the sign, yet. And they were selling them for fifteen dollars.
At least nobody will buy them for snake food at that price...

[nevadamoon]

I have natal rats, and I think they're lovely.     Granted, I'm not a child, and I understand that they're never going to be super social.  But mine are very curious about me, and let me pick them up/pet them. 

Petlands are franchised out.  They're supposed to have all their 'providers' checked out by a corperate person, but who knows?  You can go on their website and report if there's a store that's not good.

Personally, I've only been in Petland once or twice.  It's not awful here, but it's not all that great either, and frankly- they're expensive and I'd rather my money go to a pet store that didn't sell puppies. 

[NightmareWolfie1]

I have Natal rats, too. I love my girls. They love scritches, and are alright with being held. But they're also NOT a good child's pet. Too skittish. It's the way they advertise them, I'm afraid some parent is going to get them. Find out they aren't cute and cuddly, and dump them, or worse.

They aren't bad enough that I can report them. Not terrible, but not great sums it up. I've seen worse.

We won't actually buy from there, as the owner accused my friend who worked there at the time for stealing. The only reason she was accused of stealing is she refused to sell puppies like used cars. they're supposed to do whatever they can to make you buy a puppy. Whether you are ready or not. It's like throwing puppies and people who can't afford a couple thousand dollar dog, and saying, "Oh, it'll be fine." 

[nevadamoon]

I have 3 boys.  Never even seen them in a pet store (I think.)  Saw some that could have been in the mice feeder tank once, but I didn't look closely and they were tiny.  These were my 3 when I first got them:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/26794352@N03/2552395555/in/set-72157605440102442/

And this is 2 of them now:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/26794352@N03/2575834275/in/set-72157605440102442/

I personally don't think rodents (especially small ones) make good pets for young kids, or even slightly older-then-young.  Yes, there's some awesome kids out there who take care of rodents, but they usually have their parents interested in them, too. 

Even if it wasn't terrible, if you complain they probably have to make a note of it.  Enough complaints, and they probably do something.  Maybe it won't make a huge difference, but you never know. :3

Their puppy prices are pretty outrageous considering what you can get from the shelter for much less.  I guess you can't find 'designer mutts' there usually, though.  (In puppy form anyway, I can't even count how many grown puggles I've seen in shelters.)  Kind of made me laugh last time I was there, and they were selling normal tabby kittens for over 100, and it only included first shots and a deworming.  Shelter is under that, and comes with spay/neuter.  (And these kittens, while cute, could have been dumped outside the store for all I know.)  I've thought about getting a job there, just because I would like some kind of job and it would mostly involve being around animals, but I doubt I could sell puppies or any other kind of living thing.

[coeurfragile]

Our Petland is pretty good, I'd say, but I usually do not shop there because ours doesn't have a large "small animal" section, nor do they carry a lot of small animals. Bunnies and ferrets are really the only things besides cats/dogs/fish there. I do go to Petland sometimes though, for the reason that when I was looking around before we got our rats, I was trying to scope out what supplies each pet store had, and there was a very nice, knowledgable sales clerk who said I could come back at any time to ask her any questions. (When I asked about rats, she whipped her camera phone out and started showing me pictures of her rats and telling me all about them.)

I believe the reason the puppies are so expensive at Petland is because they work with breeders to obtain them. Most, if not all of the puppies they sell have papers, and come with a three year warranty that covers health care, etc.  Although I do agree that they do try to "push" buying the puppies on you. They say they try to match up puppies with the right families, but I honestly couldn't tell you if that's true because I have never adopted a puppy from Petland.

[pinkie1205]

I have only been in one petland and it was terrible.  This was YEARS ago though and then it was the only pet store in my area. 

I know that some are worse then others.  I have friends in Canada and they have said that some of the petlands there are terrible.  I know that there is a website that lists all the "horror stories" of petland.

My boyfriend and I drove to PA to go to this pet store.  It was on his route (he's a fed ex driver) and he never had time to stop.  We drove up there and were pretty much horrified just for the simple fact that the prices on the puppies were outrageous and they were in cages that they couldn't even turn around in.  They had a few feeder tanks that were filled with rex and dumbo rats.  There was almost a mommy in a cage by herself and there was a sign that said "this rat isn't for sale".  We asked the kid (he was afraid of rats actually, he let us hold the rats but he wouldn't get one out himself) if he could put a baby in with the mom to keep her company and he said he wasn't allowed. 

We drove down to a petsmart that was down the street and there was a girl there who had worked for that petstore for a long time and quit.  She said that the owner rips off people on the prices of puppies and that she doesn't really care about the health as animals she just sees dollar signs.  She also said that because they have those open tanks that people would come in and basically harass the animals and no one would do anything to stop it.  She quit and went to pet smart.

I'm just kind of fed up with pet stores in general anymore.  I really want to take my business to online companies that don't sell animals.

[RatStars]

Our first PetLand just opened about a year ago. One of the salesmen tried to tell me that all rat blocks were the same and that aspen was bad for rats so I don't generally buy from there. I do visit there frequently to keep an eye on what they are carrying and on how knowledgeable the staff is. A store is only as good as it's employees, you know. Our PetLand doesn't tend to have a large selection of small animal supplies, but they never seem to be out of animals, small and otherwise. Although I can't complain too much about how they keep the animals in the store. Besides the typical overcrowding found in most petstores, they seem to keep them well. The cages are always fairly clean, they have water, and they use carefresh bedding.