Everytime you shop at petsmart you are supporting the way they treat their small critters
Everytime you shop at petco you are supporting the way tey treat their small critters
I shop at Walmart, but I DO harrass the empoyees about the conditions of the tanks (two of the three walmarts cosest to me are now reasonable clean, the closest one is STILL awefull.... though Im begining to suspect this is partlly from their supplier... goldfish came IN with Ich, bettas came IN with SBD and finrot :( )
Everytime you shop at petsmart you are supporting the way they treat their small critters
Everytime you shop at petco you are supporting the way tey treat their small critters
I shop at Walmart, but I DO harrass the empoyees about the conditions of the tanks (two of the three walmarts cosest to me are now reasonable clean, the closest one is STILL awefull.... though Im begining to suspect this is partlly from their supplier... goldfish came IN with Ich, bettas came IN with SBD and finrot :( )
My Walmart doesn't have pets. We don't go there very often anyway because we can never find a stupid parking spot. And EVERYONE is disabled.*sarcasm* All the handicapped parking places are taken and people who are not disabled park there anyway.
The picture is just me, telling you to deal with it ;]
At least petcos and petsmarts are PET STORES. Walmart is an oligarchical company who is not qualified to care for anything, much less wild animals. The pet stores where I live take great care of their animals, and if they don't, I speak up. Again, at least it's their job to listen, whereas at Walmart? It's not even on their list of priorities.
My husband was a department manager at Walmart for Paper Goods, Chemicals, and Pets. They carried fish and trust me, he HATED it. Most of the fish came in bad shape from the supplier. Unfortunately it was not up to him who they ordered the fish from. But he did the best he could to care for them while they were in the store. Unfortunately, even that was difficult. Walmart is awful to their employees. (My husband works VERY hard and makes little money, less than $10/hr, as a MANAGER.) They expected so much from him, and unfortunately his other departments were more important to them than Pets. He had barely any help, either. He had one part-time associate who worked evenings, so he could barely communicate with him anyway. My husband cleaned the tanks first thing in the morning before they had many customers, but he didn't usually have time for more than a couple water changes, scrubbing the tank walls (they left the lights on in the tanks 24/7), and scooping out dead fish. He has since transferred to a smaller store that doesn't have a Pet department, and is desperately trying to get out of Walmart but in this economy we are just grateful that he has a job, period.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I just had to get that out there... if you want to complain to Walmart about the care of their fish, please don't take it out on the associates or the department managers. It's not their fault, as it isn't their decision to make and they are almost always being worked to the bone and are doing what they are told. Which is almost always to do something more "important" than take care of the fish. Take your concerns to the higher-ups: the store manager, or write a letter to corporate. Even then, I doubt they will do anything, since all the higher-ups really care about is sales :\
That being said, I believe that the best approach to this problem, any pet-care related problem really, is public education. If you see someone looking at the bettas/fish in general, explain fish care to them (if they'll let you, lol). Tell your friends about it. Heck, even explain it to the employees/sales associates if they seem to not know what they're doing ;D (most of the time, they don't. Especially at Walmart! I would hope that Petsmart/Petco would cover the basics in their training, but even then they are probably still swayed by what sells).
One of the pet stores I go to most frequently has quite a few bettas in stock most of the time. I had to go there if I can't be screwed driving for 20 mins to the RSPCA pet store, only because it's better stocked than my nearest one.... anyways, in that store, most of the aquarium related stock has dust on them, and the bettas are in drink cups. What was worse, and I was too shy to tell the staff... but I was appalled to see - was a small tank on the register counter (I'll say about .5 ga?) there was a betta bed (plastic shaped like a leaf) stuck to the side, a floating mirror, and what looked like a few fake plants in there. what made me sick was that the betta bed was nearly 2 inches above water level, and the water was looking green. I don't want to guess how long that water hasn't been changed.
Another thing that really made me sick was that the whole shelf with stock of bettas in cups, once when I was there looking for something to buy for my fish, I saw the last few from the last shipment, the water was yellow, and the bottom was a layer of fluff of god knows what. The store where I got my fish, at least they had a plant in their glass containers, if they weren't so poorly stocked on aquarium supplies, I would go there just to save myself from staring at poor little bettas :(
Anyways... unlike Princess Penny's husband, all the pet shop employees seems to do is stand around and talk about nothing, at least dust stuff off and change the water for those poor little critters! I am going to stick to the RSPCA stores now, at least they know what they are doing for the bettas...
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