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Posted by BTL on May 23, 2001 at 19:16:16:
In Reply to: Re: please read.... posted by Todd Evans on May 23, 2001 at 12:25:03:
I took the job at pet smart because i wanted to try to help make a bad situation a little better. I think i have done some good there because our reptiles acutally stay alive when i am working there (I kept 5 veild chams alive for 5 months untill they all sold in that crappy ass reptile enclosure) and i have control of the herps that we order, so nothing like stump taild chams will come into our possesion. If we get the right animals they do quite well there, we have had the same bibrons geckos there for almost 7 months, and when we had two adults they bred like crazy and we had about 6 babies as a result. I do like my job there, even though it is very looked down upon in the herpworld, and even though i have no chance to really change the company as a whole i think i am helping make these animals lives better than they would have been if i didnt work there.
Ok, now it is my turn to be an a$$hole (kind of). My fellow employees brought to my attention that they have been having an increasing ammount of people have been coming to petsmart after the moon & imperal herp shows with the animals they bought there and asking the petsmart employees how to care for them. This did happen to a somewhat minor extent last summer after the imperial shows (i remeber once, mother and son came in with a baby nile monitor and wanted to put it in a 20 gal tank. When i told them that the lizard would reach 6+ feet long the mother about died) but i was always working during those days and knew enough about the animals being brought in to send the people in the right direction. What is bothering the other employees at petsmart is that people will come in with outlandish(to them) herps and expect the Petsmart employees know how to care for them, and will subsequently get mad when the person they asked knows nothing about the animal. You can see why this troubles me, people coming to Petsmart employees who know nothing about herps for advice on how to care for exotic herps, it is just asking for the spread of misinformation and the death of an otherwise helathy herps. I know the herp show atmosphere is condusive to impulse buying (lots of animals, lots of people, "give em the cash and go" mentality, and alot of the time the dealer dosnt have time to give the buyer detailed instructions on how to care for what is being purchased). I just thought it would be good to bring to the herp societys attention that this is going on, and that maybe some steps can be taken to combat it. I have had a few ideas: Maybe posting flyers promoting Kingsnake.com, saying something like "Visit TSHS online @ Kingsnake.com, the best internet resource for information on your new pet.", or maybe even an Info Booth at the show were a few members could sit and give out info on animals if people need it. I dont really know what will work or if it is even feasable to correct this problem, but i hope you understand my concern about people coming to petsmart for info on herps most of the workers there have never heard of.
Andy
