So today when i stopped in petsmart just for the heck of it, I asked what they fed their bettas since Xan wasnt eating anything but blood worms... Well the lady i was talking to proceeds to tell me that bettas should only be fed once a day or every two days. And that they like "dirty dirty" water because they live in puddles. And she said that i was probably changing his water too much and that i shouldnt run the filter -at all-... took every ounce of control i had to not tell her she was wrong wrong wrong wrong...
i was at an aquarium specialty store, and when i mentioned i was fishless cycling, got asked rather hardhly " what IDIOT told you to do that?" and got told to toss some zebra danios in and whatnot.
Vanah,
I don't think I'd be able to work in a pet store. I think my heart would break any time I saw one of the fish, hamsters, mice, whatever that was sick, dying ot dead. I felt bad when I had some feeder crickets die due to my dumby self having them in the bag too long, even though I knew they would be eaten by my frog. *sighs*
I can understand what you are saying. I don't know if that was this guys reasoning though.
CoverMelnClay, I hear you on that. When I was little I wanted to be a veterinarian, and the thought has crossed my mind in the recent past. I know I couldn't emotionally handle it. Same goes for as much as I would like to volunteer at shelters, I donate instead. I'd be in tears half the time and trying to kill the scumbags who dumped their pets the other half.
So many scum bags I hear about where I am that I'd like to do in. I don't understand how they can legaly be looked at and seen as being any less responsible then if they were to assault a person. Animal cruelty usually leads to the same or similar things being done to people. At people have some chance of fending attacks off, unlike these poor animals.
While at Petsmart the other day I overheard a customer explaining that his tank has a white cloudiness to the water. The Petsmart employee was trying to sell him new bio media for his filter. I had to step in and explain that what he had was a bacteria bloom that was probably brought on by causing damage to his bacteria bed and that replacing the bio media would only make things worse.
I swear, some of these people know nothing about what they are selling or doing.
I used to manage the aquarium department at a Petsmart. I did everything that I could to educate my people. We would have training meetings and discus aquariums on a regular basis. If they didn't learn they got transferred to a different department or we would cut their hours till they found somewhere else to work. I didn't tolerate having uneducated people selling live animals to people just to have them fail.
ugh i remember doing work experiance at a pet store...
shipment of hamsters were all wet tailed,
there was one poor mouse shriveled to near death with its hind torn appart by the other males, and i wanted to put him down ( ive worked with feeder rodents, i know how to humanely seperate the brain from the spinal cord) and got told " were a pet store, we dont kill animals"
i basically got told to give that mouse to the next snake owner wanting dinner -.-; ( i hate live feeding, but customer is allways right)
another reason to get deffensive- if you can bs your way to the person and make it think it's not the stores fault, that somehow saves credibility.
i was blatanlt told not to mention the shipment of wet tail hamster * coughpetlandonfraiserhighwayinsurreycoughkellyyouraneurotic****cough* :3
I was in Animal Jungle a few weeks ago buying my first betta, and my friend and i saw several dead bettas in their cups. We told an employee, and showed them, and they said "they're just sleeping" -.- The poor things were obviously dead. i held my tongue, because usually Animal Jungle has great and knowlegeable employees, and wasn't in the mood to start a fight, especially since the rest of the bettas seemed healthy enough. When I got my second one (along with some neon tetras to add to my 20g community tank) an employee gave me a funny look when I mentioned that I felt bad about keeping my new little guy in an unfiltered and unheated vase for a few days. "They're used to living in practically no water, and in a cold country! They don't need a heater or filter, or even a big vase!" Again, not wishing to pick a fight, I held my tongue, but gave her my best "you're a complete brainless moron" look. She skittered off.
On the bright side, I was in there looking for marimos today, and the guy I talked to said they didn't have any for sale. When he heard i wanted one for my newest betta, he fished one out of the display tank, and gave me a discount on it. He also helped me pick out some tetras and other fish that would do well in my community tank with Opale. He was great! And on my way out, I noticed two dead bettas in displays, and grabbed the nearest employee to tell them. I don't even think he was in the fish department (I think he was a Reptile's employee lol) but he grabbed both of the vases, thanked me for pointing them out, and said he would take care of it right away. Just goes to show that even if you have a bad experience at a pet store, there probably are at least a few good employees
went to the bellingham petsmart, and it was actually very nice
the bettas were in large(well compared to the cups) containers, prolly half a liter, and they were 80% full, and had a lid on them that had a hole in the center, so they had air, but had issues jumping out. the bettas themselves were hard to judge from the blue water, and hey nobody looks happy after shipping. but the lady knew her stuff well, and in chatting mentioned that she does go out of her way to research pets she does not know much on.
i got to see those glofish that are illegal to come into canada ( didnt bring any as it was early in the trip, and my tank isnt ready for them) but got me a marimo ball and some decorations on sale
I wish, oh how I wish that you had to actually know about fish to work in the fish department of a pet store. I mean, you have to know about cars to work at an auto repair shop, right?
The next time someone tells you a dead betta is just sleeping ask if it's normal for sleeping bettas to rot that way. That's how I can always tell a dead betta from a sleeping or sick betta. The water is always disgustingly red/orange and the betta is decaying. Hurrp, I saw one today at Petco and the memory is haunting me.
One of the cups at my petsmart was completely yellow, and the poor guy was still alive... I literally couldn't find a single employee on the floor, in the fish area or otherwise. So I moved the cup front and center so other people would see it. Hopefully either someone bought the poor guy or he got clean water... I'm checking back tomorrow.
If I come home with him I'll be dead. I literally had to beg to be able to bring home my new dragonscale boy today XD It would have been hands and knees begging had my mate been there, and our convo hadn't been through text XD
If they haven't changed the water I'll be carrying him around the store til I find an employee Then demand a manager. I hate my Petsmart so much I actually applied there so they'll have at least one employee who knows something -.-
Oh, I can smile and kiss my manager's bum when I need to. But when I sell things, i make sure the customer knows what they're getting, and if it's an animal, how to take care of it. I refused to sell any animals at my last pet store job, because they sold puppies and kittens from mills -.- I refused to lie.
oh but people want emotionally abused, parvo ridden, mutts marked as " designer crossbreeds" with "cute" genetic deformities! everyone wants brand new, and not " pre owned"
well, a "good" labradoodle will be several generations deep, thus having consistancy in the traits of that line. this is needed for it to become an AKC breed in and of itself; please note a huge portion of dog breeds today were in fact made by mixing existing breeds for several generations together untill the right traits of each breed presented themselves in the right area, then that line was bred independantly, locking in the trait dispersal.
Ah, thank you for explaining it to me. Labradoodles are then specifically and selectively bred for their traits while a lab/poodle mix is random so you don't know what traits it may possess from either breed, is that correct? It sounds like the similar ways they went about establishing some of the more recent cat breeds (La Perm, Pixiebob).
yep!
like bengals... if you have a 1st generation bengal, you might get a cat's coat, and a wild cat's mean temper. only through several generations can you have the desired wild cat's coat with the domestic cat's tame nature.
i do not know if there is a collective and organised direction in which the "ideal" labradoodle is trying to get towards to become an independant breed. Maybe they are trying to make a set of characteristics for everyone worldwide to aim towards, or if the traits are kennel-specific. I do know a while ago one pregnant female was shiped to australia for 30K, so there has to be some guideline to what the final goal is.
but for the most part, ya got back yard breeders just slapping together 2 cute toy dogs to make some chick's purse cozy.
I'm a little eletist tho...i got my dogs from a kennel that made it easier to adopt a human baby with all the drilling they did on your side. but thats how it should be, as portuguese water dogs are not a beginer pet, or something that just hangs out in the background ( and yes, ive had them since before the obamas >.> a lot of porty breediers are worried were gonna get mills cause of them)
It sounds like you have some experience breeding furry critters.
I love all animals, I do, but I just wish the celebrities wouldn't make it cool to have little itty bitty dogs. People just don't realize that they're as much work as bigger dogs, even more so because they are prone to some health problems larger dogs don't have. My veterinarian has a few micro chihuahuas and she mentioned once how they're incredibly prone to hypoglycemia because of their size.
I love the portuguese water dogs, they're elegant dogs. The ball park for the baseball team San Francisco Giants is right on the water and when the park first opened, some guy would bring his portuguese water dog and the dog would swim around in the water picking up balls that were hit out of the park.
Anyway, I've managed to lead the thread off topic again. I'm so good at that. >.>
*shamelessly contributes to the derailing of this thread* :twisted:
Seriously though my dog Rocko is a pound puppy, and he's a beagle/foxhound cross. So basically he's a first generation harrier. He's actually a pretty good specimen for an "accidental" mix, so he probably would have been selected to continue the line in a breeding environment. A good breeder knows how to avoid defects, and those dogs that don't reach the desired standard are responsibly homed or kept as pets by the breeder.
This is one of the reasons I have uncontrollable rage towards careless breeding, over-creating of new 'breeds', and of course puppy mills: it's Russian Roulette with the gene pool, and there are always 'throw-aways' in the first few batches.
Sigh, oh yes, I agree about the careless breeding. And the over breeding of new breeds. It makes me sad to think that while people are trying to create the next new dog or cat breed through what is basically controlled mixed breeding, there's a mixed breed animal dying in a shelter for lack of a pedigree. I admit however that I don't fully understand the genetics and the technical details.
*vainly attempts to bring thread back on topic knowing full well I'll lead it off-topic again later*
what i love are the pure breed mills... sure they got papers, but man theyre so full of defects.. saw one where they did labs and a good number of them had like k9 popeye or whatever, was creepy
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