This is kinda long... it's both ranting and story-telling at the same time, so bear with me...
After the dentist yesterday, I went runnin' around (with my face half numb, yay..), first to Exotic Jungle Petstore, and then Petco, looking to see if I could find the Exo-Terra 10x11" heat tape for a fairly good price or whatever so that I could just go ahead and get one of the two newest cages up and running. Well, Exotic Jungle had the heat pads but wanted $25 each and I could swear I saw cheaper somewhere before. Petco didn't carry that brand heat tape anymore, and they were lacking a lot of their substrates and I couldn't find the nicely shredded aspen snake bedding in large quantities. Exotic Jungle didn't have what I was looking for either.
So... I decided... that I would go to this teeny little petstore, Streetside Pets, that deals and specializes with primarily freshwater and saltwater fish. It's located in a town right next to mine. They have always had a small little reptile section, along with birds and rodents. The condition of their reptiles has never been good, along with the environments of the birds and rodents. So I decided to come to the store to see what they had, and the last time I visited this store was ages ago, at least a year or more, and there were two guys and a girl in there at the time. The store reeked of the rodents, which were kept in a back room behind a large window so you could look through the window, and the birds were kept back there also, displayed behind the window. The little reptile display cages are located just beside the door that goes into that back room. The door to that room at the time was closed, and still reeked to high heavens. As I had started walking out they asked me if I needed help with anything, and I had said something along the lines of, "Yeah, you can clean up this place and feed your animals and reptiles," as I continued to walk out.
So when I got there yesterday, they still had the teeny reptile section like always, but the conditions were pretty much the same as they've always been. Several years back I had "rescued" several anoles, a couple turtles and even my big male tokay gecko, Toki... the conditions were rather the same with the birds and the rodents, however they didn't reek like they did the last time I was in there. The seperate room that the rodents and birds were in, the display window was absolutely filthy from the parakeets and other birds having got poop and spit everywhere (yes, birds spit, particularly parakeets). And the person who was running the store was the same huge fat guy that I had commonly seen there before. I don't know for sure if he's the actual manager or not. With every step he took he was breathin' like he'd been running... if he's too lazy about himself then he's too lazy to take care of everything else.
The few anoles they had were emaciated like the ones I "rescued" before several years ago... with one on its way out, and one that had died in the back of the cage some time ago and was all shriveled up. Poop everywhere, in all of the cages. There was a young green iguana and a water dragon that didn't look so great, along with a female golden gecko and a Cuban anole (which actually didn't look that bad... yet)... there was an albino cornsnake I couldn't see, probably because he was buried under the substrate. All of the cages were filthy... then in one of the display cages at the bottom, there was a little teeny baby ball python laying somewhat curled up against the front glass, in pretty bad shape, at least to me. His water bowl was completely green with algae, even some poop in it, and I overall felt sorry for the poor thing. I always feel sorry for any of those animals. The sliding glass door was cracked open a little but not really enough that I could even try to get him out and sneak him out of there, which would of been a really stupid idea anyway... but to save his life, it may not have been. The store guy was currently in another back room dealing with some customers about fish, while I on the other hand would have been completely out of view had I tried to do anything at all... but I didn't, I thought things through, and I didn't want to get in trouble.
Anyway, I thought to myself, screw it I'll just buy the little ball python anyway. I thought things through, and... well, sure, it's not good to support a business like that by buying a sick animal, because they can get more animals to sell that will be in poor health... but at the same time, it doesn't matter if an animal is bought or if it's left to die in the petstore... they will continue to get more animals to sell whether they sell any or not or whether animals die or not. Darned if you do, darned if you don't by either leaving the animal to die in the petstore only to be replaced by another, or buy the animal and support the store... it just doesn't matter either way, at least to me.
I wish that store just stuck to specializing in fish, instead of dragging in the poor reptiles too. They don't need the reptile section and most likely the bird and rodent section. I don't care of they sell bird/rodent/reptile supplies, but god, for the sake of the animals. Their fish and tanks looked fine, but everything else was crap. At least Petco and Exotic Jungle's reptiles are actually fairly decent/good looking even if they aren't in the most absolute correct display setups. I wish we had an animal control or a state ASPCA, and I wish the power in my friggin' cell phone wasn't low at the time, otherwise I was going to take pics of the terrible conditions. It's not that seeing the animals like that broke my heart, its just so frustrating how people just let things get like that without a care in the world. I know there are lots of pet shops out there like this, but if I can change this one, do something about this, it will be one less. I wish I could buy the store and turn it into something more, the best pet store in WV even.
So anyway... I grabbed a couple bags of the fine aspen snake bedding, and then once the guy got up to the front of the store I told him I wanted the little baby ball. He said to me, "He's shedding right now and isn't in a good mood and bitey, just to warn you." I shrugged and said, "That's fine, I want him, I have other snakes at home." So he gets a deli cup, unlocks and opens the cage door, bends over and tries to scoop up the poor thing in the cup instead of actually touching it, to where the snake spazzed defensively and ended up falling out of its display case onto the floor (about a 6" drop) so the guy picked him up and put him in the cup, while the snake is all curled into a ball, frightened. I was standing behind the guy, watching all of this. I didn't say anything, I couldn't say anything, I just wanted to kick him in the butt and knock him over, take the snake and go running out. There was an air pump somewhere underneath the display cages that was vibrating like crazy, creating a ton of vibration, so the snake and other reptiles had to live with that crap, too.
Anyway... I'm just glad I've got the little guy now. I soaked him for a couple hours and was able to get all of the stuck shed and crusty stuff off of him. He literally had crusty crap, on his face and on his belly. He looks like a completely different snake now. After all of this ordeal, I'm just gonna continue to buy all the stuff I need online where I can get my money's worth. I'm tempted to go back and at least "rescue" the Cuban anole and golden gecko... but I don't know.
I'm in the process of gathering phone numbers and writing a letter to the mayor of the town that petshop is in... at least try and get a hold of somebody who can help me and tell me what I can do. It's finally time that I did something about it...
Here's the little guy/gal that's very dehydrated and underweight... Very teeny, I would imagine it being only a few months old. He looked a lot worse than he really was in these "before" pictures. I haven't truly decided if I will permanently keep him yet, but in the meantime I'm going to get him healthy and fattened up. I offered him food last night, and he seemed kinda interested but never took, so it'll have to wait. He's currently in my bedroom in quarantine.
Before
After
