Pets at Home - poor advice

[MeridianB]

Just collecting some basics and overheard this conversation:

Customer: we just got a kitten, it’s one week old. What should it eat?
Staff: Cat Milk. (Then reads label out loud) for six weeks to two months. There are you are…
Customer: thanks is that all it eats?
Staff: You can feed it any of this (waving arms at shelves full of adult cat food).

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that their staff are such a mixed bag when it comes to knowledge but this was appalling. Don’t they get any training?

No understanding that a 1wo kitten should be with its mother (assuming not orphaned or rejected in this case as they were buying everything for it). I know it’s not their responsibility to police this but they should at least point it out and know better than to recommend wrong foods.

The worst of PAH was staff who killed off surplus rabbits out the back - about 20 years ago.. Ours is a mixed bag of staff tbh. Very knowledgeable to the- buy any harness and it can be adjusted to fit any ddog- staff.. .... Ended up taking ddogs on to try before I bought.. Again.

Ugh, Brolly. Similar experiences 25 years ago when our store disposed of excess hamsters out the back.

I hope they have improved on that front, at least.

What do you mean disposed of excess animals out back

Well that kitten will be dead 24 hours from now. Didn't you intervene? Someone had to tell them to get that kitten back to it's mother immediately, or take to a rescue which knows how to syringe feed. Yes the member of staff was crap but you were there, and you knew better. I hope you said something.

Tmi but a shovel was involved.. And I know it's fact as the store member was a man my then dh knew and he told him when I was luckily sat in the car.... I rang HO and they said it would be looked into.

@thecatneuterer

Well that kitten will be dead 24 hours from now. Didn't you intervene? Someone had to tell them to get that kitten back to it's mother immediately, or take to a rescue which knows how to syringe feed. Yes the member of staff was crap but you were there, and you knew better. I hope you said something.

Yes, of course. I had a long chat with them. Checked it was one week old. They were confused about the kitten’s age. Said one month. I explained that the kitten should be with its mother until eight weeks minimum and why. We talked about food and vets, vaccinations etc.