guerrilla petstore tactics

[smallonion]

Yesterday I went to the crappy petstore that I 'rescued' Humphrey from two years ago. I needed some disinfectant and that's the closest place. I really try not to go there. As I was walking there, I was saying to myself, "do not go in the bird room. do not go in the bird room." Of course, I went in the bird room, and my heart sank. They had a bird that looked something like Humph, called a Rock Pebbler. He was in a barren cage (like all of them) by himself, sitting on a perch, forlornly.

I asked how long he'd been there and the guy said since just before Christmas. I said, "all that time with nothing to do but sit in the cage on his own?!" I looked at the guy and said, "let me give him a toy". To my surprise, he replied, "alright, go ahead".

I chose a toy and hung it in his cage. he didn't approach it, but he didn't freak out, either. Then I looked around to see who else needed a toy. Two ringnecks by themselves in an empty cage looked like the next candidates. I gave them a toy, and they completely freaked out. So I took it out and gave it to a lonely tiel who immediately went over and beaked it.

I didn't want to give to many toys because the guy would probably just take them out. So, leaving two birds with toys may help those individual birds and may help persuade the owner to enrich the birds' lives while they are in his care.

I have pleaded with this guy in the past to give the birds toys, I wrote letters to the owner...nothing. So this is my first success.

[FeatherLover]

That's awful.

There is an independent petstore near where I live that is similar.

The bird room has cages on top of cages of birds that just look depressed.

Good for you, giving them toys. It's sad that it has to come to that, but it sounds like you did the right thing.

[basketbagley]

Michelle You have such a big heart! I don't know why these pet stores have to be so stubborn! It breaks my heart, cause it can lead to birds that may not do well in some homes as they could have. which of course leads to homeless birds!!!!

NOt everyone is as loving and dedicated like you! and most of us here!

[Alika]

What a nice ending to a bad story You really do have a big heart.

Yesterday was the great petstore capades for us. We were looking for snake food, and hit four stores before we found what we needed. The first was PetCo... same old, same old. The second was a locally owned store that we usually avoid because of conditions. They don't know how to keep reptiles. The worst were the iguanas. I found a dead baby in a display tank and a young adult who clearly had metabolic bone disease (rickets/calcium deficiency) and dry gangrene creeping up his tail. We told the staff, and they only acted mildly interested and then hurried off to help other customers without even removing the dead iguana (well, it wasn't *quite* dead, as it turned out, but it was pretty darn close!)

The next store we hit had gone out of business.

The fourth store isn't my absolute favorite, but it was better than the second. The birds had toys to play with and were in okay conditions, but they were in mixed species groups in enclosures. A pair of young green-winged macaws played on a playstand near the registers. That wouldn't have been too bad, except that the store lets anyone and their dog touch those birds. A group of bratty kids kept running up to them and petting them and touching their tails, then running away... like it was a game. Their dad didn't do anything. He thought it was pretty funny and cool and tried to pet the birds himself. I help hoping that one of them would turn around and bite the snot out of someone, but it didn't happen. Shortly after we walked in, they walked out and that was the end of it.

We did find our rats, though, and while the employee was getting them for us, my husband noticed that one of the U2's had a bloody tail. The blood was fresh and the tail was tattered (as it usually is in young pet store birds) and I figured it was probably just a blood feather.

When the employee came back, we let him know about the bird. He seemed extremely concerned and thanked us for letting him know. He excused himself and went right back to that bird, removed it from it's cage, and took it to a back area. As he went, he said "I'll get her looked over and fixed up... don't worry!"

I know that he might have been taking the bird just to hide it, but his immediate attention to the situation gave me hope that the birds are, for the most part, well cared for and looked after.

[Dayna]

You guys should come to my store and meet my birds! People arn't allowed to touch unless they are seriously interested in buying. Everyone has toys that are rotated, same species cages. Large cages. Our Umbrella babies still get tattered tails though. I really think that is a baby thing, not a pet store thing. All my large parrots come to my house for baths, and I take them home on a regular basis for "one on one" time.

Not every pet store is the same. All my rodents have wood to chew and wheels to run in. Even the finch cage has that parakeet toy that has rings and a bell on the bottom (they love ringing the bell).

[Alika]

Dayna, I would LOVE to visit your pet store some day :)

I agree that tattered tails are usually a baby thing. Sometimes birds with long tails like macaws lose their tails by being kept in cages that are too small, but in this case, the birds weren't in cages with bars, they were in large display cages with windows. I think the tattered tail was a baby thing, and the blood was simply a broken blood feather.

That's no excuse for the mixed species and the poor macaws, though.

I would, though, love to see your store. I know all pet stores aren't bad.

[Lisa B]

Originally Posted by Dayna

You guys should come to my store and meet my birds! People arn't allowed to touch unless they are seriously interested in buying. Everyone has toys that are rotated, same species cages. Large cages. Our Umbrella babies still get tattered tails though. I really think that is a baby thing, not a pet store thing. All my large parrots come to my house for baths, and I take them home on a regular basis for "one on one" time.

Not every pet store is the same. All my rodents have wood to chew and wheels to run in. Even the finch cage has that parakeet toy that has rings and a bell on the bottom (they love ringing the bell).

I had canaries that loved ringing the bells too**LOL** I'm glad you take pride in your store. I wish many more would.

Michele....thats my girl!!!
as my signature on my email says....
"...Saving just one pet won't change the world...but, surely, the world will change for that one pet..."

[Alyce Johnson]

So far as I can tell, pet store workers may often be OK, but store owners are a bit slimy, in some respect or another, in virtually all of my own experience. (The person above who takes her birds home is obviously the exception!) But most stores - there has been some problem.

One place has sold the same bird 3 times now. And has resold the cage and equal number of times. He just keeps coming back.

Another place has great saltwater stuff (not easy to find) but that's what the owner really knows. He only carries birds because some people want birds. He keeps them in these tiny acrylic cages which look great (and are very clean) but are totally tiny & devoid of any room to move much less play. Then he wonders why his poorly socialized birds dont end up making him any money, and why he has to discount them to move them.

We were so disgusted with the conditions the birds were being kept in that we stopped going there for salt water stuff. We now drive to San Fran instead, even though it's a lot farther. It just made us sick to see the birds kept like that.

The place that sold me our "unrepentant" biter of a green cheek conure - the owner knew the family, as the kid who originally owned the bird worked there for years part time until he left for college. She lied to her own employees and told them the reason the bird was up for adoption was that the parents had 3 other birds to care for and couldnt handle it all by themselves, now that the bird's original owner had left for college. Plausible, but not true, as it happens.

Turns out the girl who sold Emerald to us overheard the store owner and former bird owner talking, later. She later apologized to us, telling us she felt really bad when she overheard them talking about what a biting problem the bird had. She hadnt known that when she sold her to us, and the bird has a history of being really sweet - to strangers. She didnt start biting until we'd had her 2 weeks. That same sales person subsequently referred me to another bird store - the competition, essentially, where I now do almost all my business.

I like that store because that owner has a standing policy of telling prospective owners that birds bite. Like the same way cats scratch and dogs/puppies chew. It's just part of the deal - they have beaks and they sometimes use them. If you take one on, you will likely eventually someday get at least nipped. She is just being realistic but it costs her a lot of potential sales, because people are really turned off by that little bit of info.

But she also runs a bird rescue out of the store - she has any number of birds just dropped off to her for re-homing. So she knows if she makes a sale that goes bad then she just has to feed and subsequently re-sell the same bird, only older and with more baggage, and at a discount. So her policy is to try to let people know what they could be in for, ahead of time.

I like that she is honest about it, and also will tell you truthfully (so far as I've so far discovered anyway) of any known problems with the re-homed birds. She will just give you the original forms to read, if you're seriously interested in the bird. All the "dirt" on the bird is there. And the staff will tell you what problems they've had, too.

But the downside to this place is that she charges an arm & a leg. Really overpriced on a lot of things. I buy what I need to get by from her, and try to stay away from the frills (at this point). I 've already spent a ton of money there, back when I had it to spend, so I dont feel bad. And I do figure a few dollars here and there is OK because she does do the rescue stuff out of her own pocket.

Still though, it seems like you cant get a decent price from a decent person, most of the time. You pay, or the birds pay, one way or another, usually. It's kind of a sad business, in many ways. I've started to want to run a good pet store - but I'm afraid it might tend to be a money losing proposition.

[TooLover]

Since Dayna's store is too far away to visit, I will stick to the internet. It breaks my heart each and every time I go into a pet store and I just can't take it!!!!!

[Gary B.]

i really like that the one pet store tells you like it is with the birds. i always wanted to own my own pet store (job playing with animals HECK YEAH!!!) however with 4 kids i think i would need a job not so risky. so maybe one day i could do a rescue program. we have 2 petstores here 1 i like the other i dont shop there because the ferret cage has a hole at the bottom so the ferrets go to the poop pan and seems like they get stuck. birds are WAY to crowded in the cage. plus it doesnt look like they clean it that often. once i found a dead kitten in one of the cages and they didnt even notice. we did get a free kitten from there because of it so we got to save 1 life. the other store will not sell you a critter if they think it is sick. they dont try to sell just for the money. they look after the critters. when i had a salt water tank they would tell me not to buy certain fish because they wouldnt house together peacfully. thats where i do all my business.