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Chain pet stores are useless. You aren't taught anything about animals, everything those employees know is knowledge they learned outside of the store or things they heard on the job. You aren't trained to know everything about every animal, and it's silly when customers get mad because you aren't sure why their dog has been puking for 2 weeks and you don't have anything to make it stop.
I don't think anyone understands that it's not a pet store, it's a retail store that sells pets. Employees last under 3 months there and they all quickly learn that customers get angry if you say you don't know, and it's easier just to guess. They are normal people making minimum wage but are expected to know everything, and deal with the fact that they can be making $2 more an hour to flip burgers at mcdonalds! They work there because they like pets, and it's likely that they may only like a certain type of pet and know absolutely nothing about others. Their bird specialist probably knows the most about birds out of the employees, but I remember owning birds for years and barely knowing a thing about them until about 2 years ago. What's basic knowledge to us is probably the only thing about 90% of bird owners know. Some people just aren't obsessed with birds enough to learn more than they need to know.
The bird probably is in good health and there should be a 14 day guarantee. I can understand not wanting to get a bird from a breeder; I don't fall in love with breeds of birds, I fall in love with THAT bird at THAT store. Make sure it has bright, clear eyes and isn't puffed up or sleeping a lot. Check the poops in the cage to make sure they aren't runny. Depending on the store, birds usually don't die. I think in the entire year I worked at petsmart, there was only 3 dead bird returns. One was a budgie and we weren't sure how it died, and the other two were finches that the customer put in with an aggressive, larger bird that killed them.
If the bird is expensive and it dies in like 30 days when the guarantee is for 14, a lot of times they'll let you return it anyway.
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