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15K views 75 replies 26 participants last post by  Chin Addict 
#1 ·
So today I was in petco buying some ferret supplements and I notice a lady asking one of the employees about purchasing two rats. The employee walks away for about 5-10 minutes(pretty long time for just having to get the keys...during this time I was playing with the petco ferrets of course haha) and comes back with the cage keys and a big glove on. He opens the cage to the rats and gets his box ready. After reaching in, he grabs the first rat by THE TIP OF THE TAIL...and somehow manages to put it in the box without ripping off its tail...it was struggling wildly. Of course, the employee went on to say "stupid*$! things, I hate them." I knew the next rat would probably be just as bad, but kept watching because it wasn't really my business. He grabbed the second rat by its tail and it began to swing wildly in a circular motion as its tail was being held in the employees glove. Two seconds later...*riiip.*

The skin of the rat's tail came off in the employee's hand, the rat screeched like a banshee, and the lady screamed. The employee just kind of stood there, and said "sorry about that, would you like this other rat over here?" The lady just walked away...not sure if she went to tell the manager or whatever...but now the employee had to put the first rat back in the cage. Before he could do that, I went over and told him to just let me do it. I scooped the rat up, put it back into the cage, and left the petstore.

I've always told people I hate petstores because the people working there usually don't know ANYTHING about a lot of the pets they sell. It's quite a shame...and of course in the end you know it's a giant money making scheme. I hate petstore employees that just want their paychecks and couldn't give two craps about the animals they work with.

Anyways I just wanted to share that with you all since I thought you might be interested :D
 
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#2 ·
OUCH! What happened to that rat? Poor thing,I bet he is in alot of pain!

I give points to the lady for walking away,but the rat needs a vet.Thats cruel!

I hate pet stores too and have witnessed things...things I will not discuss,unless people wanna hear them,but they are not happy stories!

I am sorry you had to see that...what a horrible experiance!
 
#3 ·
I do want to hear them...I love hating pet stores hahaha :D

I pretty much knew no matter what I did, they wouldn't do anything for the rat. Especially since there were two people on duty...the other of which I've known from the past to be an idiot. I go there simply because its the closest petstore, and I can get what I need for my ferrets and sometimes for my rats. But man...I don't know...maybe I should go back and buy it? Does the skin on the tail grow back? Not that that really matters to me, but the I already have eight rats and really don't want to bring another home because I'm pretty happy where I am now.
 
#4 ·
thats sad.

Im glad she walked away...

i would have gone quietly to the manager and said something about what i had seen..just to let them know the employee didn't know how to handle a rat and needs to be trained how to do it so other rats dont get hurt. Maybe they would care or maybe not. I wouldnt have been able to stay quiet..would have to say something. Even if they didnt care and did nothing about it i would have felt better saying something

Poor ratty. I wonder if they did something about it, put something on the rats tail...or if the lady mentioned it to the manager.
 
#5 ·
Yeaah, to be honest I don't think there was a manager on duty at that time now that I think about it. The store doesn't usually get too much business on Sunday nights so they just have two-three employees there(one being a cashier who is SCARED of all the small animals). Maybe the manager was somewhere in the back...I dunno, I was just sick of it all.
 
#8 ·
id buy the rat but im just like that. when i got my rats at petco the girl that helped us 1/2 knew about rats, i think she just read the care sheet and tried to pick up a rat by its tail at the very base but at the tail none the less.... she was open to hearing how to do it though and even practiced :)

i am glad i didnt see its skin come off i probably would have puked and cried and yelled and everything else had i been there
 
#9 ·
petsmart is not horrible, but the people that buy pets tick me off as well as some of their employees....i know they have good intentions, trying to help homeless cats/dogs...

but its hard to be shopping for my pets and have a guy stand near me and tell me how hes housing a gerbil in one of those plastic tube cages...and later try to give up their animals to me...like they can dump their "problems" away...stupid impulse buyers........
 
#10 ·
I hate Petco too. When I was there they had the wrong sized wheel and the wrong type of wheel for gerbils. Of course I talked to the manager and they fixed it but the wheel is still too small so the gerbils don't use it. I prefer Petsmart but even then I would prefer a mom and pop pet store because they seem to be nicer to the animals.
 
#11 ·
That's terrible. I can't even go in the petco around here. It's horrible. At least they've started seperating the male and female small animals though.
 
#13 ·
To be honest, had I seen this happen, I would have bought the rattie (an friend), taken it out to the car, set him up, went back in......and promptly be banned for the string of explicits coming from my mouth. lol.

The skin won't grow back, what usually happens is you clip the exposed bone off with nail clippers or the sort, and apply neosporin, and keep it in a safe, dry area where nothing can get stuck to the tail (like cloth bedding), thats about all a vet will do as well......

I'd call the manager, and the head quarters to the store, then post an open article in the paper.....or sue for emotional stress and trauma, lol (well, you can sue over just about everything now!)
 
#16 ·
no pet store is great, not even mom and pop bc of the employees that dont bother to educate themselves
 
#18 ·
rodentz said:
I like the petco near me!:D


But I have had HORRIBLE experiances with pet land.
funny, i actually love petland! ...well their products..not the guys that work there bc they are soo immature and snobbish..but other than that i get my aquariums ordered from there, and they seem to have a good variety of fish

do you know if they have oxbow products there?
 
#19 ·
at petco?? im not sure they probly do.


The petco around me used to suck horribly now they have bigger cages, no pine, good food, fruits and veggies. and the people actually know what they are doing.


on the other hand, I went to petland and they had 4 males in a 10 gallon tank with 2 of them having big infected cuts on their tails and one was draging its back leg. I told an employee and they just poked them and made them run around and said they were fin since they were still moving. My boyfriend got really mad so we left.
 
#20 ·
rodentz said:
at petco?? im not sure they probly do.


The petco around me used to suck horribly now they have bigger cages, no pine, good food, fruits and veggies. and the people actually know what they are doing.


on the other hand, I went to petland and they had 4 males in a 10 gallon tank with 2 of them having big infected cuts on their tails and one was draging its back leg. I told an employee and they just poked them and made them run around and said they were fin since they were still moving. My boyfriend got really mad so we left.
sorry for the confusion, does petland have oxbow products?
 
#22 ·
Oh my goodness, that is horrible! It never fails to amaze me, how cruel some people can be. It's been my dream for a while to open a pet store, and my screening process for employees is going to be extensive, because of things like that. I'm so sorry you had that experience. Like other people said, kudos to the lady for walking away. I hope she told a manager.
 
#23 ·
That poor rat! You just witnessed a degloving of a tail. It will let people know to never ever grab the tail of a rat in the middle or the end...
Health Guide: Degloving Injury

If the injury is as severe as this one sounds like, the tail would need to be amputated. I actually went thru a minor degloving recently. One rat decided to try to bite thru the tail of another rats who got on top of her cage. :( She got the tip removed and the exposed bone clipped through. They need abs because of posssible infection from so much exposed tissue.
The pain of degloving is incredible and rats scream and freak out.
I pray that this rat was put in the infamous "Petco Freezer" instead of being left to suffer untreated. :(

I'm soo glad we don't have Petco's in Canada. :(
I'm upset now, I'm going to bed.
 
#24 ·
Oh my gosh, sometimes I want to work there myself just to save the animals the harm! I would have been so mad. Poor rat.... I just hate when poeple do the. How would you like it if someone was holding you by your backbone!!!!!:( :( :( :( :(
 
#25 ·
wow
i just dont know what to say
Don't you think that is a form of cruelty
i would buy it if it is still there
and call the news chanel receipt in hand
they probably would eat that story up.
go check on it for us tell us if it is still there
 
#26 ·
I would go back and get that rat too.Poor baby.Rats should not be picked up by the tail at all.

We don't have Petco here,but we have Pets Unlimited or as I call it "Death Unlimited".I boycott that store now,but man...I have witnessed a woman hit a guinea pig because it attacked another GP in the same cage,witnessed dead mice in the cages,animals that are very sick and need vet care,one employee wanted to show my friend how "aggressive" dwarf hamsters were and started dangling a pair of keys in their faces,making them freak out...the list goes on and on.Not to mnetion I have gotten in arguments about how to properly care for some of the animals,because there was a hamster wheel in a rat cage and often the cages have no food and water and of course the animals are on pine.

Me and my family members and friends have complained to the manager,but nothing has been done.He is just as stunned as the employees there!

:mad2: :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:
 
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