Pet's you wish weren't sold at pet stores

[Alireza]

Definitely Green Iguanas. I don't think they should be "removed" from the hobby, I thin the pet shop owners need to inform their iguana buyers more than others.

 

[Bazzgazm]

In defense of the pac-man frog. I have a male (only known now because of his vocalizations) but he's quite an aggressive feeder. Outside of his feeding and barking whenever we make too much noise... he does just sit there.. but those 2 things by themselves justify him as a pet in my household..

I'm just going to vote on VERY CHEAP large reptiles.. I.e. retics/burms/rocks/iguanas/some monitors..

because of lack of reading.. people get involved into something they may not understand.

 

[dtknow]

Bettas are perhaps the most abused fish sold today. Just because an animal CAN survive in a cup of water, doesn't mean that it SHOULD. Male betta fish need a minimum of a 2.5 gallon tank per fish, plus a filter and a heat source. They are very intelligent fish and if you treat one properly and talk to it, they will respond to the sound of your voice and blow bubbles, which is the true sign of a happy betta.

peace.

What? Sorry that reeks just a little of anthromorphism. If bubbles were a sign of happy bettas, many petstore bettas in cups would be quite happy(and many bettas in the arbitrarily defined 2.5 gal would be quite sad)l...

(this from someone who has reared several generations of these neat little fish)

 

[Cheshkitty]

I am going to reply to this post. I am constantly talking about pets that should not be in the pet trade. My list is long and most of these have already been brought up I am sure So here goes...

Pacu- These are known to grow to monster sizes. Given that they are quite popular in the pet trade local Aquariums have sadly stopped taking them in. This is due in part to the numbers of Pacu that have out grown their owners aquariums. The local Petsmart in my city has actually stopped supplying Pacus They have been taken off the shelves pretty much. They are still on their order forms but as far as the general walk in public, unless you specifically ask to order some, you will not see them in the tanks. One employee is pushing for the same to be done with Oscars.

Oscar Cichlids- Another very popular pet in the trade. It is sad because more often than not people buy Oscars because they are cool looking without having any back ground information on them. A single adult Oscar should be housed in no less than a 75 gallon aquarium. The other problem arises because of personality. Oscars are notorious bullies, they will choose to pick on fish just because they are bigger. The problem here is when other fish choose to fight back and Oscars are too big and too slow to react properly.

Any snake over 6 ft- I say 6 ft because the average human male is 6 ft tall or smaller (yes I know there are men that range in height that are taller but average wise) also it takes just a small amount of pressure on the human trachea to cause significant damage. So all in all anything that is over 6 ft in length (even if it is not big enough to eat you) can inflict serious injuries.

Caiman/Alligators/ Crocodiles- Many people purchase Caiman on a whim because quite frankly they are adorable. What most people do not understand is they can very quickly reach lengths that would be deadly to an adult human let alone a child (quickly as in a couple years not a couple days). They are just not good news sorry.

Actually I am fine with iguanas mostly because I know how big they get but I do agree that people often buy them because they are cute when they are little. I think they should be sold in specialized pet shops only. Where employees who know their stuff can provide accurate information to buyers.

Gilla Monsters- I was in my LPS today and they had two baby Gilla Monsters. Seriously? The cage was clearly marked venomous but still, I really do not think these should be in a pet store.

Any living pet sold at Petco/Petsmart or any other large pet corporation- Merely because they do not accurately inform the staff on how to care/house/size/aggression anything really. The employees are really just there to push merchandise. Do not get me wrong I have run across a handful of employees from large chains that know their stuff but most of them are like... really... did you just say that goldfish would be fine in a 1 gal bowl as long as I feed it tetramin color? Maybe big corporations that deem it needed to sell live animals should spend less time worrying about educating their employees on the merchandise and more time educating them on the care of the animals. Even if it were 50/50 it would still be better than it is now.

Any pets at Walmart- I hate this store enough said.

Hedge hogs- While cute I agree with another post that most people buy on whim and really know nothing about them.

Not really a pet but any cage under 2 cubic feet marked as a rat/rabbit/guieni pig cage. (ha I can not spell)

Also not really a pet but Cedar shavings as bedding for small animals -.-

Pirahna- They are actually illegal to sell in the state that I live in due to the fact that people keep releasing them when they get too big, and yes they do get too big.

Peacock Bass Cichlid- They get massive and if you do not read up on them you really do not know what you are getting into.

Red eared sliders- People tend to buy them when they are tiny. Oh how cute the baby ones are. What they do not realizes is they tend to get bigger and need a fairly large aquarium to meet their needs.

Really just anything that starts out tiny in a pet store but winds up being a monster. I think they should move these to specialty shops only.

Dogs and cats are a given. Unless you are a certified breeder I really do not think you should be allowed to sell you dog or cat. Re-homing fees are fine but this 800 dollars for a mill bred pomeranian is a little much.

Hermit crabs- They are painted up and displayed on lower levels of pet stores just so the kids notice them. Then starts with the 'mommy I want one'/ Personally I see the advertisement of hermit crabs dangerously close to the placement of sugar cereals in supermarkets.

What else... ha I am taking a mental walk through pet stores to think of anything I have missed... hmmm

The betta fish is a given as well. I think they would be fine is they would display them properly. I have a local fish store that displays most of their bettas in community tanks. Some in the plant tanks. It just takes a little bit extra from the store to display them better then I think they would be fine. I have a huge problem with the way bettas are displayed in huge corporation pet stores. When you walk into Walmart on any given day you see about 20-30 very unhappy almost dead looking Betta fish. Maybe that is just around here. That is also just an explination.

Finches- Most people buy these because again they are cute. Yes I will agree with that but they are also rather small which leads them to have high stress levels. These birds bounce around constantly stressed by all the large bipeds walking around them. If they are sold I think they should also be moved to specialty shops to lower the stress. That is just my opinion though.

Feeder goldfish- Until the big chain stores can find a way to humanely house the number of feeder fish they get in I do not think they should have them. When the food you buy for your animal is sick due to cramped conditions this leads to poor food and quite possibly your animal becoming sick. I have had a fish die from eating a feeder bought out of one of these tanks. Granted it was a rosy minnow but still the conditions are just horrible.

Baby snakes under a certain size- I brought my 4 1/2 foot corn into Petsmart in the summer. We were out getting pictures taken for my tattoo and Petsmart was right down the street. I needed some more bedding and a light bulb, it was nice out so in we went The amount of shocked looks, gasps, and questions I got about her was ridiculous. Most of these came from the employees. One employee owned an adult Corn so she was not shocked but the rest were. They could just not comprehend that my massive female once looked like their 6 inch babies. This is a problem. People go in there by the hundreds and purchase baby Corn snakes thinking 'It's cute and I have been told it stays small' Yes they are a smaller snake but no they do not stay THAT small. I mean the baby Corns they had there... Their heads were as big as my snakes eye, seriously. You also know the employees, being as shocked as they were, are not going to say 'hey those snakes grow to be around 5 ft.' No chance..

Mainly I think pet stores should...
A. train their staff more on animals.
B. require people to come in with SOME knowledge of what they are purchasing.
c. Know that even though they might bring in the money. If the animal has the possibility of growing to be a monster or being deadly to someone without proper knowledge, they probably should be placed either in a restricted buyers section (ie only people with knowledge about what they are buying can buy, people over a certain age ect) Or should just not be sold....

I am not saying any of these animals should just vanish from the trade. I know of a lot of people who make it work. I would be happy if people were were offered more accurate information about the animal that they are purchasing. For example I know I have been in big chain pet stores when someone was buying -insert animal here- I casually started up a conversation and stated the actual size the random animal got to. I have had people gasp and inform me they never knew and that maybe a different animal was better for them.

That is my two cents :-D

 

[dtknow]

Again, with bettas I don't think the problem with them is the size of the cups but rather the stress they went through while being shipped(a bad batch or one that got delayed chilled is going to die...Walmart in general seems to get in poorer quality fish), lack of temperature control, and water quality. I've seen plenty of dead bettas in community tanks...actually they often get slowly eaten by other fish when displayed this way.

 

[BobGrill]

I know a lot of pet store employees are quite uneducated and ignorant about the animals that they are selling, but it seems to me like nearly everyone on this forum tends to think of all pet shops as these Evil Corporations. Not all of them are like this. I know no one is going to believe this, but when I bought my emperor scorpion from petco, the woman who gave it to me actually knew a lot about arachnids.

 

[satchellwk]

I honestly don't think any species need to be outlawed, which might just be a political thing, but I do believe that pet stores need to take it upon themselves to make conditions better for the animal, even if it means not carrying that species. these include:
-fish that exceed 3 inches in length, and if they are sold, the buyer needs to be informed
-uncommon exotic reptiles. I say this because, at my lps, they have been getting in the most unusual herps that need special care, such as flying geckos, spiny lizards, water dragons, mountain horned dragons, sandfish, and african fire skinks. I think that the store needs to stick with the basics, leopard geckos, ball pythons, corn snakes, bearded dragons, etc, (an of course provide proper info on them)
-I just never liked the idea of owning a bird, since they are a flying creature, I've never really thought that they could be truly happy unless given ample flying space, which is rarely provided by the average owner. More intelligent stuff like parrots are ok, since they can usually be let out of a cage and allowed to fly around the hose, and then return to the cage, however, finches, canaries, and the like deserve at least a large aviary, but that's just an opinion of mine.
-I don't like the sale of hermit crabs at all, mainly because of their inability to be captive bred, but also the horrendous conditions that they are usually in. If any animal were to b outlawed in the pet trade, it would be these guys (sorry to the owners who properly care for their pets, but I would assume you more than anyone would understand how much that would benefit the animals.)
-Dyed or genetically altered animals, such as dyed glass fish or "jellybean" frogs, which are clawed frogs that have more likely than not been given an industrial dye to make them neon colors. That's jsut cruel and horrendous. that is one practice that should be totally outlawed.

However, there are a few animals that others have been disgusted with that I don't really see the harm, mainly red eared sliders. I understand that most owners don't properly care for them, and end up releasing them, however, being a native species, I think it's fine if they're released. They're probably better off being put in a pond or the like anyway.
Also, with the complaints about herps and other animals being in tiny cages, the whole idea is that the pet store cages are temporary, and only intended to be used for one or two weeks. The problem that I've been seeing with my local pet store is that they purchase unusual reptiles that noone wants to buy, and they remain in the store for months. If pet stores stuck to the run-of-the mill reptiles and were able to move them faster and more efficiently, then I don't think the small cages would be too bad (especially if they informed the buyer that they must provide a larger cage for their pet).
That's just my opinion, I don't hate pet stores, I just think there is a lot of improvements that need making.

 

[dtknow]

Fire skinks actually can be quite good first time lizards...providing you start with healthy ones.

The problem with RES is that they are not native in many areas. Here in CA, the most common turtle you encounter is not our California pond turtle but invasive red ear sliders....followed closely by softshells and map turtles. These are live releases of the food/pet trade. Also, releasing animals can introduce disease...well meaning owners releasing desert tortoises brought a disease that is currently decimating wild desert tortoise populations.

 

[Ludedor24]

Anything that isn't a fish ?

 

[blazetown]

Anything that isn't a fish ?

Well I'm personally a fish guy(merman). Having been in the fresh and saltwater trade since I was a kid I can say without a doubt that fish in general are the top category for unsuitable candidates in fresh or marine. Don't get me wrong because I've seen others and even kept some "impossible" to keep species but it takes skill and effort. The only general issue with freshwater fish is size. Examples; Goldfish, Pacu, I.D. shark, Rays, Peacock cichlid, Swamp eel, Gar, Arowana. Then you get into marine and brackish(most of which are true marines) and you have diet, size, current, tankmates and occasionally water chemistry issues. Generally the saltwater issue is also one of size and diet though. Marine examples: Jellyfish, sharks, dragonets, some groupers, pipefish and seahorses, etc...I've worked in a pet store personally though (Pet Paradise here in london, not a chain) and I found that me and my fellow employees had a lot more issue talking people out of buying things then giving out useful information. I probably talked our store out of at least $2000 in sales because I would not send home an aggressive T, large growing snake or hard to keep fish or coral out of principle. Me and my manager there had a motto though, "The customer is always wrong until they're informed."

 

[compnerd7]

.... I'm not going to touch this thread with a 4 meter poll....

 

[astraldisaster]

Well, to echo what others have said...I don't necessarily think most pets should not be sold in stores, period, but I would very much like to see these stores making more of an effort to educate potential buyers about certain animals (and setting better examples, via how they are kept in the shops). Iguanas, large snakes, hermit crabs, rabbits, hell -- even bearded dragons -- need specialized care that a lot of stores don't even bother stressing too strongly when making a sale. If managers cared more, pet care standards (in the shop) were raised, and employees better educated, I think it would make a world of difference. No pet store should be willing to sell an animal to a customer who doesn't understand (or can't meet) its needs.

 

[argolupin]

I have to say as a pet store employee (until recently) that one thing my first store taught me was that we could deny a sale if we felt the animal was not going to a good home, though when i transferred to my last store i noticed that my fellow co-workers would never deny a sale... I was one of those employees that would utilize the books available, as well as the care guides to try and find the answer. Almost every day i would go home have try to look up answers to a question because a customer would ask something i could not find the answer to. as far as what critters should not be sold in stores here is my list

1) Goldfish - reason being they cannot live in bowls, every goldfish requires 2 gallons of water for every inch long they are
2) Parrots - they are like 2 year olds and need lots of toys and interaction, if you can't give that to them at teh store, dont have them in your store
3) Hamsters - too vicious i always get bit by them
4) Chinchillas - too fragil if tempatures go into the 80's they get too hot
5) Dogs - unless they are from an adoption group
6) Cats - unless from an adoption group
7) Bearded dragons and Chinese water dragons - because of their size and spped of growth and requirements - unless of course it is stated over and over that they need large cages...

 

[Tarac]

Well I'm personally a fish guy(merman). Having been in the fresh and saltwater trade since I was a kid I can say without a doubt that fish in general are the top category for unsuitable candidates in fresh or marine.

That's my top pick too, top of the list hands down. Although I would say pipefish and Seahorse are easy as pie, even dragonets as long as you don't have any other competitive thing in the tank and supply live food frequently- it's size that matters primarily and secondarily unusual diet, temperament, etc. Ultimately a seahorse only tank is a fairly boring tank, not the reef teaming with life that the uninformed customer imagines without having any clue that basically everything in a marine system is constantly at war, even the corals. But for so many others, such as Pomacanthids (Marine Angels) that require a diet high in sponge and become a 16" adult (which is not even that large for a marine fish) make them entirely unsuitable for all but the largest public aquariums who have the space and resources to provide for a large and picky fish like that.

The number of baby Arowana with egg sac still attached (basically doomed) I have seen for sale is crazy. And what happens to those tropical fish when they are 3-5 feet long, are you still thinking it's gonna fit in that 55 gallon tank which you tell people is your "huge" aquarium? Try thousands. There is a LFS here in town that will sell anyone anything, it's absolutely disgusting the owner is a total sleazebag which I say because I know he knows exactly what he's doing. It's bad to be ignorant but it's worse to be greedy and devious. On any given day you can go in and find more than half of the stock for sale will never survive in captivity even given the best of care- they're telling people you can put an octopus with grouper as long as they grow up together, letting people keep clowns with incompatible anemone so it has somewhere to hide when the sargassum angler gets hungry. I just can't go on enough about how horrible this place is. But people flock to it because they're too lazy to do research themselves and because naturally it has a far better array of potential dead fish than does the other store in town which keep minimal stock and only the "boring" stuff, being those fish which are small, easy to care for and often even captive bred which is rare for marine fish. I think marine fish and most aquatics in general are the worst off, they are least likely to be properly understood at the time of purchase and the most likely to be forced into a very very small space. It's almost impossible to keep

Alas, most people still think a fish won't outgrow its tank- this is in part true, it will die because the volume of waste it produces will ruin the water quality so quickly it is impossible to keep up and it will ultimately die before it is full-sized. But it didn't stop growing, it just died.

Most things that get really big are not very suitable though, people don't think very far ahead in the future when they're buying a cute squiggly little burmese python. Then it comes time to smash rabbit heads in for feeding the 150-200 lb monster and suddenly the everglades gets another apex predator.

I agree that these animals shouldn't necessarily ALL be banned from sale, it's certainly possible to care for many of them- I have a big old green burm myself. However some, namely marine fish and others that fit that model, just will never survive in captivity no matter what and surely all 50 of the clown groupers sold in the store in town in the last year did not end up in 300 gallon aquariums (which is still kind of small IMO for a fish of that stature). Probably needs to be a combination of forced education, like taking a class or proof of quality housing, etc. on an animal which has the potential to be unreasonable, and restriction of sales for those things which simply cannot survive captive care. But we still have a lot of dogs which are mistreated, horses in the fields starving to death (who would think an animal the size of a horse would need so much to eat? duh!) so what people do with the retic crawling around their babies crib at night in the privacy of their own home is very hard to control.

There is no question at all, the pet trade has a very very dark underbelly. Best thing to do is spread the word and not support LPS that are irresponsible. Can't do anything about the customers but try to inform them and even still they will lie right to your face about the size of their tank and the extra room they added on for the caimans, but if they don't have anywhere to buy reef shark then they probably won't have one.

 

[tangoblue37]

isn't it terrible the way they keep those poor tarantulas locked up like that... only joking.

Seriously though, i hate when betta fish are kept in tiny little vases and things in pet stores because of the myth that they 'like' small enclosures. Not true

 

[dtknow]

Fish and marine inverts are probably the worst off. it is partly due to the impression of them as dying alot...so fish dying is seen as nothing unusual.

One thing I find odd is the sale of nudibranchs that simply cannot be kept alive in captivity since their food source(some species of sponge) is unknown. Unwitting keepers get to watch them slowly starve. But again, as long as their is money to be had...

 

[SandDeku]

I know a lot of pet store employees are quite uneducated and ignorant about the animals that they are selling, but it seems to me like nearly everyone on this forum tends to think of all pet shops as these Evil Corporations. Not all of them are like this. I know no one is going to believe this, but when I bought my emperor scorpion from petco, the woman who gave it to me actually knew a lot about arachnids.

I used to work at a petstore. I wasn't uneducated or ignorant about animals I was selling. Infact I told the truth to people and should any idiot come in asking to put a goldfish in a bowl I would immediately tell them a naughty word off. It's 50% 50% not all are bad but not all are good. I remember a co-worker that was so dang stupid she used to pick up rabbits really tight.

Long story short. After the old boss got fired, a new one came in and fired those who showed too much interest in the animals(i.e. myself along with two others).

---------- Post added 01-10-2012 at 02:18 PM ----------

.... I'm not going to touch this thread with a 4 meter poll....

How about with a 4meter and a quarter pole? lol

---------- Post added 01-10-2012 at 02:20 PM ----------

I have to say as a pet store employee (until recently) that one thing my first store taught me was that we could deny a sale if we felt the animal was not going to a good home, though when i transferred to my last store i noticed that my fellow co-workers would never deny a sale... I was one of those employees that would utilize the books available, as well as the care guides to try and find the answer. Almost every day i would go home have try to look up answers to a question because a customer would ask something i could not find the answer to. as far as what critters should not be sold in stores here is my list

1) Goldfish - reason being they cannot live in bowls, every goldfish requires 2 gallons of water for every inch long they are
2) Parrots - they are like 2 year olds and need lots of toys and interaction, if you can't give that to them at teh store, dont have them in your store
3) Hamsters - too vicious i always get bit by them
4) Chinchillas - too fragil if tempatures go into the 80's they get too hot
5) Dogs - unless they are from an adoption group
6) Cats - unless from an adoption group
7) Bearded dragons and Chinese water dragons - because of their size and spped of growth and requirements - unless of course it is stated over and over that they need large cages...

Hey why not just say there should be no petstores? Oh and while we're at it, why don't we just join the PETA with their stupid remarks about petkeeping and ban everything while we're at it?

 

[blazetown]

I used to work at a petstore. I wasn't uneducated or ignorant about animals I was selling. Infact I told the truth to people and should any idiot come in asking to put a goldfish in a bowl I would immediately tell them a naughty word off.

If I had a nickel for every time I had to explain that a goldfish was a essentially a carp..."No the only thing you can keep in a gallon of water or less is a betta. No those kits you were sold with the african dwarf frogs need filtration and you need at least a 5 gal for one. I know they told you the bamboo would filter the water and the frog only needed the water changed once a year. They lied I'm sorry."

 

[Bluebloom]

Well I think

Parrots u should have to have a license to get one they live for 80years some of them and people buy them for children like there nothing most children shouldn't be in charge of an animal that's put up there with gorillas and dolphins. Congo African greys are what I'm referring to kids don't usually
Have enough respect for themselves let alone for the breed I own one I got from a zoo cb and he's way too much for any kid to have because some uncaring parent bought them a thousand dollar bird like it was a cheap iguana

 

[Dyn]

Because a cheap iguana needs to be given to someone who cant take care of it?