Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We all have and exprienced our own pet store horror stories, myself included. I went to PetsMart today to get some fish water checked, and of course I find myself in the 'reptile' section. I'm walked in ready to go crazy on the people who work there, but to my surprise, the animals were in good shape. The babies were on repticarpet, and had a hide, and a pile of moist spaghnum moss. The juvies were on sand, but the poops looked normal and the animals healthy. None were really skinny, and there were crickets in the tank, and the water was clean. The other reptiles had things in their tanks that related to them (temperature, humidity etc), and everyone looked healthy. I'm guessing my PetsMart got a new 'reptile specialist' because things usually aren't in this good of fasion. The enviornments seemed fine, but a juvi normal was running for $90. A bit pricy, no?

I guess I'm bored, and there were no new postings, so I decided to share my story. No reply is necessary.

Michael

Nice to hear about a good petstore for once...lol My local petsmart only recently started selling reptiles (at least that I'm aware...), but they seem to be in pretty good shape. They don't have any humidity source for the leos...but I haven't seen any with retained shed either. They even have an aquatic turtle for sale (I don't remember the species...it was definitely a more exotic one...). He's got a nice little basking log and I'm hoping at least that the light above it is a uvb bulb...but I'm not sure...the only thing that really bugs me about it is that they have him in about a 20 gallon tank and he's about 6 in long...I wish they had something bigger for him. However...they are a million times better than a lot of pet stores out there...luckily I haven't seen any really bad ones near here...probably because there are so many prevet and vet students like me lurking around...hehe Anyway...sorry for rambling! Glad to hear your petstore is decent!
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Christina

Leopard Gecko Morph Descriptions

2.3 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)
-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)
-1.0 tremper albino (Spitfire)
-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

-ignorance is not to be punished when one is trying to gain knowledge...what scares me is the vast number of people who, when given the information to gain knowledge, choose to ignore it.

I think they've had a bit of a company wide makeover, maybe everyone complaining did some good and I think they also wanted to look better than PetCo.
The one near me, I think, still suffers from a crappy supplier and so-so employees.
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Eryx - All the fun of a boa in a convenient pocket size!

thats how much petsmarts/petcos in my area usually charge for a juvie, it is insane.
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 tiger crested gecko (peachs)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

yes it is good to here good stuff about pet stores but there are things that make a petstore good in my oppinion stores like petco and petsmart are not as good as "mom and pop" stores. a" mom and pop" are individualy ran and usualy there is only on of them. so they need good customer relations to do well so they are more often to go out of there way to help you and useualy know more cause they own animals them selfs. also you cant knock pet store cause most of them dont have the income to pay people that actualy know what they are talking about. and if they do it is a rarity and its usualy the high schoolor collage kids that actualy own an animale and are like us on here every day and just addicted. so with staff that has less info about what they are selling ppl get the wrong info and the animals them selfs are taken care of poorly. and some times with that the animale dies and ppl some time like that animal so much they by another one. if you think about it normal leos have a harder life infront of them then high end ones just because of who buys them. most new hobbiest dont spend hundreds on geckos as a starter gecko. I my self worked at a pet store actualy both types too first i worked at a "mom and pop "store i worked there for 4 years as i was going through high school and by the end of the 4 years i was an asst manager but even as that i was only makeing like 5.50 and i just did it for the love of the animals that i sold and took care of daily but like all of us here i was the one that took care of all the animals every one was like ewww about the reptiles. i have also worked at a petco also after i moved to a new area and im not going to say i know every thing or anything like that but i was a stock boy and didnt even work with the animals and watching what poeple that worked there were telling customers was just wrong and i could stock dog food and listin to that so i quit cause well i had my main job still and that was a vet tech in the army wich i still do right now wich brings me to the next topic i had gotten a leo from petco and did a fecal test on it and it had hook worms again that is due to the ppl not knowing that work there i dont blame petco cause even when i worked there it was ran like grochery store and thats no way a store that sells animals should be run also on the subject of what the stores stock i know that petco gets most if not all there animals from the gourmet rodent that dose mass produce all there stuff so less quality and there for cheaper prices where as the mom and pop store that i worked at we actualy went to reptile shows and hand picked as much as we could from the breeders and i always think thats the best way anyway if you think about cause at a show breeders atake there best looking stuff you never see sick animals there and if you do its a rarity and look at it as they are wholesale prices for what you are gettting cause like i said the petstore i worked at we bought from the shows and marked it up from there usualy dubbleing it so all in all if you can get it from the breeder at a show you should be happy with what you get. also pet stores some of them have stuff that is underpriced and sometimes you can get a steel but if you have any question feel free to ask i look on the page here alot i just normaly dont say much have a good day every one and sorry this was so long

That's nice to hear. I just recently had to call the animal control officers to go inspect a pet store near my home. I had bought a boa from this store about a year ago, but the last 3-4 months the store just stopped caring. About a week after my phone call, I went to the store and everything was MUCH better. Good to hear some stores still care about the lives under their care.
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-Bill

1.0.0 Albino California Kingsnake
0.1.0 Colombian Red Tail Boa
0.0.1 Axolotl Salamander
0.0.1 Red Flame Crested Gecko
0.0.1 Argentine Black and White Tegu

My Home Page

BoidsNTegus@insightbb.com

that one animal rights place finally got to them. so theyve been keeping pretty good care of there animals.
nevin
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1.1 brazilian rainbow baos-sunshine&chaos
1.1.1 leopard geckos-killer, narvana &sallean
1 blizzerd lizzard-grim
.1 bell leopard gecko-ecstacy
.1 tremper leopard gecko-euphoria
.2. amazon tree boas-sweetness&carnage
0.1.0 kenyan sand boa-stimpy R.I.P.
0.1.0 bearded dragon-blaze
1.0.0 uromastyx-chubby
2.0 brothers
0.2 sisters
3 cats-fat max, spiderman, &toby
1 miniture mutt-brutis

"dont be afraid to die, only be afraid to not live"

"dont become classified. if you are nothing, then you can be anything."

Well, that's a mixed victory. The animal rights people would rather no one kept reptiles at all.
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Eryx - All the fun of a boa in a convenient pocket size!

no mice or rats or ne thing like that. they only have basic animals the most advanced they have are beardies and leos. no snakes, which really pisses me off. not even iguanas
nevin
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1.1 brazilian rainbow baos-sunshine&chaos
1.1.1 leopard geckos-killer, narvana &sallean
1 blizzerd lizzard-grim
.1 bell leopard gecko-ecstacy
.1 tremper leopard gecko-euphoria
.2. amazon tree boas-sweetness&carnage
0.1.0 kenyan sand boa-stimpy R.I.P.
0.1.0 bearded dragon-blaze
1.0.0 uromastyx-chubby
2.0 brothers
0.2 sisters
3 cats-fat max, spiderman, &toby
1 miniture mutt-brutis

"dont be afraid to die, only be afraid to not live"

"dont become classified. if you are nothing, then you can be anything."

n/p
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Christina

Leopard Gecko Morph Descriptions

2.3 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)
-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)
-1.0 tremper albino (Spitfire)
-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

-ignorance is not to be punished when one is trying to gain knowledge...what scares me is the vast number of people who, when given the information to gain knowledge, choose to ignore it.

.
-----
1.1 brazilian rainbow baos-sunshine&chaos
1.1.1 leopard geckos-killer, narvana &sallean
1 blizzerd lizzard-grim
.1 bell leopard gecko-ecstacy
.1 tremper leopard gecko-euphoria
.2. amazon tree boas-sweetness&carnage
0.1.0 kenyan sand boa-stimpy R.I.P.
0.1.0 bearded dragon-blaze
1.0.0 uromastyx-chubby
2.0 brothers
0.2 sisters
3 cats-fat max, spiderman, &toby
1 miniture mutt-brutis

"dont be afraid to die, only be afraid to not live"

"dont become classified. if you are nothing, then you can be anything."