Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all, I got my first mouse yesterday! He's terrified of me for now, so this was the best picture I could get without really freaking him out. He's a very pretty little mouse. And just so everyone knows, I'm not "attacking" PetSmart- they seem like they get their rats and mice from something resembling a non-idiot (that's as nice as I'll be), but their employees are told to pick mice up by their tails. I had bought a little plastic carrier for my new boy, and I said something about going to put him in there for the ride home so he could see out, and the girl at the register opened the box, chased him around while I told her to stop, that she was scaring him. She said he was fine, and when she picked him up I nearly had a heart attack! I've read that picking them up like that can cause some nasty damage, not to mention frightening them. She said that's how they're told to pick them up. Hopefully most other employees are smarter than the one I dealt with, she really didn't seem to care about the mouse, so from now on I'll be buying from someone else. Sorry for the rant, here's a picture of the mouse, who I named Vivaldi (we're doing a composer theme; our rats are Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Gershwin) and his temporary home. He's going to move to the rat cage once I get their new one built.

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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), and the new rat pack- Gershwin, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Joshua!

If you pick up the mouse by the base of the tail(close to their
little mousey behinds), it will not hurt them or frighten them
as long as you don't hold them by the tail in the air for any long length of time. Infact its safer to pick them up by their tail if you want them out of a cage or anywhere because on the food chain they are prey and if they are startled bad enough they will bite which can cause a nasty infection. As for Petsmart, the owners/head managers/etc. need to educate theirselves and everyone else that works there on how to take care of animals properly. I have rescued quite a few animals from there already because of injury or lack of proper care. I have a WTF(White's Tree Frog) from there that had glass cleaner misted on him instead of water. Just some words of advice, sorry for rambling. Sincerely, Madison

I didn't clarify- the Petsmart employee picked the mouse up by the middle of his tail, not by the base. She didn't even need to be picking him up in the first place. He was in the cardboard box already, and I was going to put him in the carrier when I got to the car.
And as for the bit in my previous post about Petsmart buying their rodents from something resembling a non-idiot- I take that back. My rat I got from there died last Friday from pneumonia, which he had to have gotten either while at the store or from the breeder's place. Ugh. So careless.

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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin and Tchaikovsky, and the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, and Schubert