Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Guys,

M mate was in our local pet shop when he looked in the top vivarium on their display to see a cloth money bag in there with an elastic band tied round the top. Curiousity got the bettter of him so he enquired as to what was in there.
He was told that their was a very very sick royal python in it with a respiritory infection. apparently a vets told the shop to keep the python on the bag and keep it on the heat mat to get rid of the respiritory infection for nearly 10 DAYS!!!!! (Thankfully they were only on day 2)
The assistant then told him that it was going to get frozen that day if it refused to feed. Anger got the better of my mate who demanded that the shop hand it over to him before he would notify the authorities to this cruelty.

Knowing that i have more experience with Reptiles he brought it round to me and I nearly shed a few tears for this thing.

It was the highest concentration of mites I have ever seen, there were mites on the mites! Its spine was protruding far out and its ribs were showing really bad. Never mind the poor things respiritory "popping" but when i actually opened the things mouth , eeuurrgghh, i couldn't see its teeth for the cheesy crap from mouth rot.

I honestly didnt think the thing was going to live and i even thought that perhaps the freezer was the best option for it!

AND to add salt to the wound of it all, i thought it was a hatchling royal but its actually a year old, well last years CF, its TINY, you'd never, ever know it was a year old.

Anyway, who takes reponsibility for this cruelty? is it the exporters in Ghana? the Pet Store? The Owner who returned it?

I love my Reptiles and I wouldn't be without them, after seeing this I actually now begin to see a valid arguement for banning the keeping of Reptiles as pets.

Anyway the little thing is doing fine, for now, although i still only give it 50/50 chance of surviving as there is a lot to treat it for and it hard to prioritise them but i must of done something right as he fed last night!!!!!!!! woohoo!!

Keep your fingers crossed for it and i'll keep the updates coming

Phil

Im really glad to see that theres someone like you that will take up for someone elses slacking. i tend to rescue all the sick ones too(just rescuing a 4ft adult BP with mites,dehydrated,etc) sounds like this BP is going to cost you alot of money. find out which veterinarian they used and Boycott them.

the pet store and the vet are responsible for the cruelty. the vet told the pet store how to cruely treat it and the pet store followed out witht the vets cruelty.
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 normal ball python (felix)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

-funny typos-
"There are six genes which determine the amount of melanism present in a person's skink"-about human skin color

please give me more typos

"...after seeing this I actually now begin to see a valid arguement for banning the keeping of Reptiles as pets."

Please, don't go there (not even in jest)... any argument that would see me punished for another's mistake is not valid from my perspective... enact tougher cruelty laws if we must, but please no "blanket solutions" such as that one

It would be better to ban the selling of reptiles in petstores, only by breeders directly. Unless the petstore passed certain care standards (ie minimum sized cages, proper husbandry etc.) then they can't keep reptiles to sell in their stores.

I think to be fair, you would have to do the same to hobbyists and breeders. It is not only petshops that may keep animals in horrid conditions, it is just that the public actually sees the animals in the petstores. What if EVERYONE'S collection was open for public view. I wonder.....
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Derek Roberts
Sonoran Reptile
sonoranreptile@earthlink.net

Anyway, who akes reponsibility for this cruelty? is it the exporters in Ghana? the Pet Store? The Owner who returned it?

The responsible party is the owner. How can we blam anyone else?

Just as you have excepted current responsibility for the animal. Every owner along the way is responsible. Perhaps you are the last owner and the animal will live 40 more years because you'll do a good job.

The fact the store/vet did not try to treat the mite plague is abysmal. We treat for mites on all new arrivals and "rarely" as needed in the store. We do not tolerate mites of any kind.
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NAMED BEST REPTILE STORE IN LOS
ANGELES

A friend of mine was in a serious accident a few years ago when a car pulled out in front of his motorcycle, he was banged up pretty badly. After seeing this I actually now begin to see a valid arguement for banning the driving of automobiles as a mode of transportation.

(now doesn't that sound pretty stupid?)

How much more idiotic does it sound to say "after seeing this I actually now begin to see a valid arguement for banning the keeping of Reptiles as pets." ? Use your head man...

Bink

I wouldn't call that person an idiot for saying that. They're having more of a knee jerk reaction I think to having an animal in front of them that has been abused and been given terrible advice by a Vet on how to treat illnesses the snake probably only has because of neglect and terrible living conditions caused by the pet shop. I couldn't disagree more with banning reptiles as pets and I agree with whomever said that all that does is punish a lot of good keepers for a few morons. The true idiots are the people that do this to the snakes that give anybody in authority an excuse to try and ban them! But I agree with what you're saying and really liked the motorcycle/car analogy that you gave. Although the way people drive around here, taking some licenses away from these people wouldn't be such a terrible thing! LoL