Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been reading many posts on this forum over the years and I see many people "rescuing" beardies from crappy conditions in PetCo and PetSmart. I know beardies are cute, and people just feel really sorry for them. But you're NOT helping by doing this!

When you "rescue" a beardie, iguana, monitor, or any other reptile, you are only reinforcing the message to that PetCrap that they can get away with selling unhealthy animals in improper conditions. You are only encouraging them to do this AGAIN so more people will feel sorry for the animals and buy them. So they get another shipment of sickly animals from a wholesaler or importer who cares about nothing but money.

Don't support this! Refuse to buy anything but healthy, CB animals. By refusing to save that little sick beardie, you are actually saving future generations of beardies from the same fate. And instead of rescuing crappy animals then spending hundreds to treat them at the vet, you could spend that money instead on healthy, colorful animals from the start.

FORCE PET STORES TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY AND HEALTH OF THEIR ANIMALS. For the animals sake, and ours.

hhh

No let them all die!!! Yeah that will teach them a lesson. That will teach them not to sell uhealthy reptiles. Or will that just make them ask for a lower price from the supplier. Or just make them think that most dragons don't make it. They buy dragons for probably $15 a piece and sell them for $80 so if one in every 4 lives through the 7 day health period they still make a profit. Only way to change them is to document the poor conditions and report them to regulatory agencies and to petsmart main headquaters. Not buying the animals isn't really helping stop the situation or causing the situation to grow worse. Most dragons bought at petsmart are impulse buys that aren't cared for anyways. Most reptiles are not treated properly. Very sad fact of life I guess, wish it was an easy thing to change but it isn't. Most animal rights people do not care too much if reptiles are mistreated because they aren't cute and fuzy. Some law enforcement don't care for the same reason. The only people that care to hear about the mistreatment of these animals are the ones that want them outlawed totally. The mistreatment iguanas has been going on for years and years. Petsmart finally decided to stop selling iguanas because they do not make suitable pets acoording to their quality control vet. See it can be changed but leaving animals to die isn't really the way.
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Derek Affonce
DeKeAff Exotics
dekeaffexotics.com

I agree.

Don't rescue bearded dragon from pet stores. A lot of animals aren't even pet quality. For example, their ferrets come from Marshall's Farm which breed ferrets as laboratory animals.

I believe there's a website that documents PetCo and their practices. I believe it's www.petcruelty.com. It's done by PETA, but it lists their dealings with PetCo and the responses.

http://www.petcocruelty.com/
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proud mama to:
1.0.0 ball python
0.0.1 albino florida kingsnake
1.0.0 leopard gecko
0.1.0 colombian rainbow boa
0.1.0 bearded dragon
1.1.0 colombian redtailed boas (on the way!)

no offense, but some of that stuff is such bull[bleep] at that petco cruelty site. They "suggest" stopping sale of small animals, how does that make PETCO bad? I know where your getting at, i'm sure there are animals that died, but every PETCO store I've been to has small animals, reptiles, etc, they are the healthiest I've seen in any pet store. Also, the air conditioning thing, that is unavoidable. And the frezer, if they are denied veterinary care, what would would you rather have them do, leave them sick, or humanely kill them so they dont have to suffer? There might be a reason for denying care, a reason unknown to the public, the just don't hire someone to take care of the animals, but not use them.
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~Julie~

Now they want all exotic animals banned next up will be cats because they are wild, next after that one dogs, next after that you will need a permit to have children. Then no use of fossil fuels because they were once animals. No use of plants either because they are alive. we will have to manufactur our food in labs. i wouldn't go to any site about peta. they are very irresponsible radicals, just like hsus, it is like us going to a site run by al Queda to get information about how our government is bad. Obviously their points of view are tainted. I do not advocate buying from chain pet stores just don't think if people don't buy that they will stop stocking animals. Just my 2 cents.
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Derek Affonce
DeKeAff Exotics
dekeaffexotics.com

"Or will that just make them ask for a lower price from the supplier."

Well if the supplier isn't making as much money from selling sick dragons, that's just fine with me.

I agree that refusing to buy sick animals probably won't make drastic improvements, unless everyone does it. Writing and complaining to PetCrap is probably a much more effective strategy. But I refuse to support a company that sells poor quality reptiles, I'm sorry.

If you want to make a change what about this:

1) ask the folks who run kingsnake to post a link to a web site you manage about this.
2) ask each kingsnake member to click and register.
3) each registering person should agree to the following:
a) add thier name to a letter to each store chain about our concerns.
b) spend just 5 minutes talking to a clerk / sales rep at each chain store in the area they live.
c) provide them with s form letter they can use to communicate our issues to the store and staff.
d) also stress that when a store is doing something positive they need to know that also!!!
4) contact the store's corp. offices.
5) contact any of the reputable supply companies and try to get them invloved on the basis:
better live animals at local stores == better sales and customer relations for the stores and for the wholesale companie.
6) also get SPCA and other organizations in on this.

who knows? this could get very big results by connecting the dots.
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I think the thing to do here is to hit them from above, get everyone to complain about the shop saying that they refuse to buy things from there because of thier conditions, and report them through the proper channels, there are the few people in this hobby that give the hobby a bad reputation, shops like this only add to it. There has to be some kind of trading standards organisation that deals with quality control of products.

Personally I think reptiles should be bought through private breeders, I dont say that because I am one, I say that because you get a healthy animal that someone has cared for and done there best for. If you buy from these large commercial places chances are is that they have been bred commercially too, without any care for thier bloodlines, diseases and well-being. Besides buying from private breeders helps to pay for the cost of keeping them in the first place and its not supporting these companies that are only in it for the money.
I breed my Beardies so they can have full satisfying lifes, I dont make any profit from them, once a year I have money coming in from them but then if I added up how much they cost me in livefood alone I am not in profit by a long way.
These companies dont care if an animals dies, they just tell thier suppiers how many deads they have had that week and get it refunded off thier accounts, I know I used to work for a fish importer.