to think Pets at Home are awful?

[lucylouuu]

I went into Pets at Home earlier and was wondering if the poor bunnies/guineas in there ever actually get to go outside? do they just stay under those lights and get poked all day? I asked a member of staff and they just shrugged. Seems really cruel if so

Oh & my pets at home has a vets attached and my niece works there so I know they are treated well as she loves animals and wouldn't stand for any mistreatment.

Ours has a vet attached too. Sadly doesn't stop the dead fish, too small cages & incorrect 'boredom busters' 😔

I hate most pet shops that sell animals (I absolutely hate seeing animals kept in cages and bought and sold as commodities) but Pets at Home is particularly awful. As other posters have said- they recommend cages and hutches that are far too small by any means and label food that is unsuitable for certain animals as being specifically for those animals (such as dried corn cobs for rabbits- these can cause serious issues for bunnies).

@freefrom I don't for a moment think that they're bashing in bunny heads with a hammer or anything like that. It's far more subtle than that, and it's not about the individual staff, it's about the decisions made by head office.

Cages that are too small, incorrect diet advice, wheels that cause spinal problems and so on ARE mistreatment, and it's an integral part of what PAH does, and shop staff don't have the power to change it

Looby they are similar with degu foods. They also don't have a problem selling animals that do better in pairs as individuals.

There's a vile pet shop near me that sells puppies & kittens 😡😡 for some reason I thought that was illegal now, apparently not. The poor souls are locked behind a gate in the back of the shop without mum, looking all depressed. RSPCA don't give a monkeys

It's not just Pets at Home, I don't think live animals should be sold in any shop.

I've never understood why people buy birds or rabbits only to keep them locked in a cage or hutch and just look at them.

They tend to get bought fairly quickly into a continued life of misery in one of the hutches Pets at Home sell
My thoughts too. I hate any pet shops that sell inadequate housing, especially when they also sell the animals. Fish in tiny tanks, hamsters in tiny cages, rabbits ignored at the bottom of the garden shut in tiny hutches. It's awful. Just because stuff is sold as "suitable for..." doesn't mean it is, and until people do their research properly before they buy an animal, this ignorance-based cruelty will continue.

Not been to a pet shop in years but I always report cases of poor husbandry to the RSPCA. Twice I reported places keeping fish in poor conditions and both times it was rectified within a week of me reporting it. Report, shame, highlight on social media. Do everything we can to improve things.

Yes their animal knowledge and welfare is terrible.

I was sold a 34 litre tank with the intention of returning 3 days later to pick up two black moor goldfish (tank size and time frame advised by them)

Luckily the day before I was going to pick them up I was researching how to care for goldfish and quickly learned the tank was entirely unsuitable. Waited a further 6 weeks for the tank to cycle then started introducing tropical fish recommended by Maidenhead aquatics

Their lack of knowledge is disgusting and yes, the rodents come from animal farms in Spain. Churned out then transported her to be stuck under bright lights til sold with a totally unsuitable cage/hutch.

I spoke to someone re a degu constantly falling over and was given daggers and told it was ‘tired’. No, love, it was SICK and unable to stay upright. They didn’t even get the on-site vet to look at it. Utterly disgusting.

Rightsaid - I know of a pets at home that actually did happen. The manager was a friend of my exh. So def not a rumour.

cherry oh no I didn’t bark at anyone! I’m not atall i like that I was just curious and asked. I was in there to buy a new fish tank haha

Well then I hope you're taking your fish for an occasional swim in the sea OP

JK. I actually agree with you and PP that no animals should be caged and domesticated when by nature they are wild. I find PAH a bit of a miserable place TBH. But it's a pet shop and that's what they do which is why I never go in. Dreading the day the kids ask for a rabbit!

Then again I also hate zoos! Maybe I'm just a misery guys but I don't think seeing animals in captivity is especially fun

judging from the posts I guess it does vary store to store it was just so sad seeing so many animals in one small cage that looked so filthy!

and I understand there is physically nowhere for them to go outside apart from a car park but they should be out in some grass. i guess if they’re bought very quickly it’s a bit better

cherry i hate zoos too seeing lions pace up and down in small enclosures :(

Yanbu they are quite bad.

I think even watchdog done a piece last year about they selling poorly bunnies, fish being dead and the lack of knowledge the staff have.

YANBU, they are awful. I used to work in one of the attached vets and we had to health check all the incoming animals, half of them were dead before they reached us and many of the surviving ones were Ill and of course they didn't want to pay to treat them. That was a long time ago so i hope things have improved since then.

@tinselistacky - I just plucked that from the top of my head as a really clear example of something that would be mistreatment. I hadn't heard it was a rumour

I'm another one who thinks shops shouldn't be allowed to sell animals. There's a pet shop near me which every so often puts a huge banner out when they have kittens in. Makes me blood boil. There are rumours of a kitten farm on the upper floors which wouldn't surprise me.

It really does vary store to store. Animals go in adoption in my local P@H because they’ve had a health problem or been returned ie. I bought a rabbit and my family member is allergic, or they have had a health problem eg. Conjunctivitis and had to go in quarantine which means they then can’t be sold from the group of bunnies and must be sold via adoption. They will never sell degus as singles. If they have a trio come in they are sold as a trio, you can’t buy one or two it’s all three or none.

They will never sell degus as singles
That's definetly happened in my local one before, I couldn't bite my tongue and tried to tell the family buying one that they should really get another.
I wish I could avoid shopping there, but they're the only place local that sells the long sticks my chinchillas and degus like.

I thought i might like degus a few years ago, having seen them in PaH. Thankfully I did my research, realised the cage they would need was too big for my flat and I wouldn't be easily able to care for them properly, so didn't buy any.

I think it doesn't help that so many of us grew up with small animals kept in much too small cages. Plus the poor old school hamster who had a tiny cage and was shuffled between families every weekend and holiday.

I would never buy an animal from Pets At Home. They give bad advice and the poor animals are often bred in horrible conditions and are shipped from Spain.