Petco: A call to action

[Alicewave]

I'm tired of sitting idly by as I hear horror stories and see awful pictures of the husbandry conditions at Petcos across the country. I'd like to start a webpage where animals lovers everywhere can share photos, videos, and stories about their experiences at Petco. Lori has agreed to host the site and I will build it. I'll keep it simple. A place for compile the evidence. If anyone has any ideas or suggestion or would like to help in any way, don't hesitate to email me at megraboin@hotmail.com. You can also AIM me at Alicewave or catch me in RTB chat. Thanks!
Together, we can make a difference.
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[CaptainHowdy]

Alice, I said it in chat, and I'll say it again..I'm behind you all the way.
now, here are some things you can all do to help...
talk to your local herp societies about spreading the word to other herpers, if you have any herp specialty shops in your area, try to involve them as well, by talking to their customers..anything and everything can and will help!
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[kogoz]

I'm behind you. I think we should we should floud the internet with complaints and send letters to all of the magor people at petco telling them how we feel. Get this site going and get all the post together and send them to the President or CEO of petco and keep sending him copys until he changes his conditions in the store. because they do it with all the animals we might can get them shut down for animal neglect.
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[telefrag]

This may be a long shot, but what about trying to encourage the employee's that are responsible for caring for the herps at petcos to get involved with local herp societies so they can see where the concern is coming from , instead of trying to gather up ammo to use against them, why not try and proactively make some attempt to educate them.

If some of us went to our local petco's and became aquainted with some employees(as some of you already do) and let them know about herp meetings, and websites such as this one, maybe they will make a conscious effort to take proper care of their critters. Many of them propbably take some degree of offense to someone trying to tell them how to do their job, when they really dont know any better. I think it would be good to let them know that they are not unwelcome in the reptile community.


If anything is to be done to influence them on a corporate level, it should be for proper training and reference materials for their store managers to make available for their workers.
If you can convince higher up's at Petco to provide that for each store, then the animals may have a better chance from the start.

It would also prevent issues such as this.

Granted this will probably never happen, but it makes alot more sense to me then to post up pictures of the conditions and what the animals may look like.
There could be legal implications to such a thing, and I would definately get legal council before posting up pictures from their stores, if it is an animal you have brought home, that is a entirely different matter.


ok , there is my .02

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[telefrag]

One other thing I did forget,

we complain about the chain stores that sell reptiles,
but what about the reptile shows that some of us attend that are rich with wild caught, and sick animals that are sold to unsuspecting persons.

If anyone wants to make a real difference, they would stop supporting shows that allowed mass numbers of wc animals, and would request captive bred only shows.

If you want to see real horror, check out wholesale distributors, or jobbers, some of them make petco look like the angels of animal husbandry.
(ok, ok there are many importers and wholesalers that take fine care of the animals, but I can assure you that those are in much fewer numbers than the others)

What we are not keeping in mind here is, those animals come from somewhere, and most likely it wasnt all that pretty either.
At what point are we really doing any good?


ok, that for real my .02

peace
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[Alicewave]

Telefrag, I agree with you 100%. Part of what I want the site to be about is suggesting ways to educate the employees and involve them so they do employ better husbandry practices. But I want to tell you that when major corporations start to get bad publicity, the good ones actually make major changes and the bad one fizzle out. Take Johnson and Johnson for example, during the Tylenol scare of the 80s, the recalled every single bottle of tylenol so that no one would get hurt. It cost them millions but now they're one of the most trusted, respected, successful companies in the world. And then we have firestone, who did not make ammends for their faulty tires and are a dead entity now. If we make some noise about Petco they will have to either make changes throughout the corporation or lose all their business. This can work. I believe it can.
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[telefrag]

Awesome,
I hope it does.



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[Squirgle]

as nice as it sounds, just talking to the employee's might not help as much as would be nice. Sometimes as much as the employee would like to change things they have pressure from 'higher up' to hurry up or something. I myself work at a pet store, and just the other night I was feeding the reptiles and my manager told me to hurry up and not take so long so we could get the closing list done...I was like "ok, we sacrifice taking Proper care of the reptiles just so we can get done closing up and get out of the store half an hour early? what the heck?"
so like I was saying, its not always the individual employee, sometimes its the manager (mine by the way breeds reptiles, he supplies most of our stores....go figure) other times it could be the owner himself (owner of my store hates reptiles, he just realizes they are a big market...)

so, uh....yeah [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
Squirgle
by the way, I wound up taking home a baby albino cornsnake that hasn't had enough food, humidity or heat. I've been trying to coax it to health at work but the time isn't availible...and it's like a limp noodle so I got so fed up with it I asked my manager if I could just take him home to recoup...so now he's here [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] I hope it works out...
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[Alicewave]

Ok I have another idea. Does anyone watch shows like 20/20? Often they do stories about companies with sketchy business practices. That's the kind of exposure I think it will take to make a real change. They've gone undercover to find consistency of problems across chains. I think if we send them enough evidence and had enough people write them letters, they would be interested to do a story about it.

Also if anyone has ideas on getting legal council about all this when I am poor and have no money, please let me know.
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[rainbowlishiss]

Alice, I'll help you in any way I can. Feel free to email me or if I come up with any idea's I'll be sure to email them to you.

I have to agree with Squirgle.. I had a friend that used to work at PETCO..and he was there reptile guy. He would set the tanks up with heat and everything else.. the correct substrate and all.. They would tell him that wasn't what they wanted and to rip it out. He never got to finish feeding the animals correctly. Not only that.. Sometimes.. People are just there for the paycheck, not for the love of the animal. Not everyone shares in our love and obsession.

I agree with you in that, if we can catch the attention of the higher ups... then we might have a chance in not seeing this happen to other reptiles. Its worth a shot.

Sometimes we think.. we are only one person, what can one person do to make a difference? Sometimes its that one person that can wake people up to get the ball rolling..

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[Dragon]

This is a great idea, but we must be careful that the media doesn't just use people like PetCo as an example of why the government should try to close down the reptile industry in general. It may be the thin end of the wedge!

Great idea tho! This could really turn things around for the herp community if the media deal with it for what it is.
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[Alicewave]

If a show did a story on this, I think what would have to happen is an well known reptile expert, one of the animal planet guys maybe, would have to explain the basics of proper reptile husbandry that Petco is missing. Someone to clarify the myths and explain why reptiles make wonderful pets would really help prevent this from having the wrong effects I think.
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