Pet Store Crime

[Vayu Son]

I had one of my classmates report to me on her new aggressive 'rosehair' but wanted to check with me, being that im the local arachno-guy.

Turns out this 'rosehair' was a 4" female H.maculata(or if im wrong, definately some stromatopelma).

Being that the main customers of such shops are children and those without much knowledge in arachno-culture, it seems suspect that it would even have one, and dangerous to be selling a potentially harmful animal as a docile one.

Just my rant.

-V

 

[jwb121377]

Well they probably ordered a Rosie hair and their wholesaler sent them something else. The employees may not even realize there are more than one species of tarantula.

 

[pategirl]

I think people that run pet shops need to learn a little about what they have in their stores before trying to sell it. I went to my local pet shop a few weeks ago to see what new stuff they had....they got in two "tiger birdeaters" as the man called them. The man told me that they were supposed to get extremely large and be very good hand pets....that statement couldn't have been further from the truth because they turned out to be C. Paganus. I bought both of the ones they had for $18. Sometimes it works to a person's advantage when the pet shop owner doesn't know much, but they would've had some explaining to do if someone had bought one for a "hand pet", hehe.

 

[SkyeSpider]

I don't know if it would do much, but I'd report the pet shop to the board of health. It's NOT cool to sell a fairly dangerous tarantula as docile. Trust me, I say this owning a beautiful H. maculata

-Bryan

 

[Vayu Son]

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My first planned course of action will be to speak to the guy first. ;p

-V

 

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by jwb121377
...The employees may not even realize there are more than one species of tarantula.

LOL Yeah the local petstore here has their T's in reptile bark substrate and cricket Gel for a water source.

Don't know if that's healthy or not. It seems like I read in a book somewhere that bark has oils and tannic acid and are unhealthy for T's; and as for cricket gel ... well what's wrong with clean water? I mean how many cricket gel reservoirs are out in the wild.

They're a little arrogant though, I don't know if talking to them would do any good. You know the whole "I work in a petstore, so it's impossible that you know more than me." attitude.

 

[Ravnos]

Sadly, most customers in 'exotic' pet stores are just as ignorant as the owners/employees. So when you bring up an inaccuracy in identification or care, quite often you end up being on the end of a "Who does this guy think he is" stare. Diplomacy paves the road to education. =D

Rav

 

[schlinkey]

Heh.. when saving my H "longipendum" i was told that it was a DANGEROUS BIRD SPIDER! Hence it could jump 3 feet high, and 9 feet horizontally.. *sighs*

 

[ArachnoJoost]

Hey, atleast they told you it was dangerous, which is somewhat true for the first-time buyers of T's. That is a better policy than selling maculata's as rosehairs imo...

 

[Bridget]

Rick (Lycanthrope) has been working for Petco since December and has made a real difference there. The animals are being taken care of properly under his supervision. It's a shame that all petstores don't make their employees take some sort of exam prior to hiring them. Rick makes sure that he educates all of his customers about the animal they are buying, which isnt all too common. He takes care of the injured animals immediately...we even have one at home. It would be great if all petstores had employees that were as dedicated to animals as he is.

Bridget =D

Can ya tell I love him? lol I'm not biased or anything ;P

 

[Ravnos]

Wish someone like him would come to work in the Petco local to me. Every time I go in there I find at least one dead animal in a cage set up woefully inadequately, last time I was there I saw a horned frog that was a completely dried up husk - I mean it had to have been there for at least a week like that. Not to mention, their entire rodent collection has had mites for months, despite their repeated promises to me that they'll "get the problem looked into".

Dunno... its great when one employee puts the effort into making their store a better place, but most of the stores really don't care - they just want to make a buck and proper care can get expensive.

Rav

 

[Lycanthrope]

Wish someone like him would come to work in the Petco local to me

i can completely understand what you are saying. when i first got there, animals were on the wrong substrates, unfed, in very unsanitary conditions, and some were even ridden with parisites. ive since cleaned things up quite a bit. all of the ball pythons had "eye caps" (skin unshed from the eyes due to miserable humidity levels during shedding) as well as blotches of old sheds still stuck to them. i took them each individually, warm soaked them and carefully peeled away the old skin. im currently treating them all for parisites also. ive had 15 animals sent to the vet who otherwise would have died miserably or lived miserably. ive also taught the entire staff proper care for, and how to sex tarantulas. the amount of problems with simple enough solutions- if you only see the problem- has been overwhelming. for instance, they have an auto replenishment program, meaning animals are sent automatically. well the rats and mice were so grossly overpopulated that the very glass in the enclosures was smeared with feces and the animals were actually cannibalizing. talked to the manager, had the max level reduced problem solved. anyhow i guess i should stop here, theres more but god forbid my manager actually looked at this site. (i gave her the address)