Pet Shops

Status
Not open for further replies.
MapleLeaf25

MapleLeaf25

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Jan 24, 2014
Messages
51
Reaction score
23
Points
185
Location
Edinburgh
Just curious but why would you not buy piggies from pet shops like dobbies, pets at home or other pet shops?

I don't want to start a massive debate but I was just wondering.

I work at pets at home and I'm getting piggies soon and wouldn't be able to get them from anywhere else because I know how well they've been looked after. I know they've already been to the vet, that they are being fed the proper diet are been cleaned every day and I get a free vet check when I buy them. I'm going to rehome two piggies from our support adoption for pets charity so the money is being put back into the charity.

Pets at home get a lot of stick from everyone for not giving good advice or not looking after pets properly bit that's doesn't happen in the shop I work in. We're trained on every animal we sell and even animals we don't sell. We have to sit all these tests and if we don't know everything we're not allowed to sell animals. We need to know about nutrition, grooming, housing, ringworm and so much more. We have to refuse sales all the time because they aren't prepared to take two or more piggies, have the right sized cage or haven't thought about it properly. We have an adoption centre and we take in people's animals who are unwanted and take them to the vets to be checked and are then put up for adoption. Our charity also offers a free neutering voucher when you rehome any rabbit which usually convinces people to adopt rather than buy a baby one.

Sorry this has been so long I just wanted to tell everyone that pets at home or maybe just the store I work in isn't as bad as people might think. We're constantly trained on everything and we put so much effort in to making sure the animals go to the right home
 
From discussions that I have had with people, the main issue with buying animals from pet shops isn't necessarily how they are looked after in store (although that is very important) but about the breeding process. In a lot of cases, corners are cut when litters are being bred solely for pet stores and the breeding animals and resulting litters may not receive the best care. You do hear some horror stories about P@H but it varies from store to store - my local one is very good and my hamsters have come from the adoption centre.
 
I think there are good and bad pet shops, but without getting into a debate about if you should be able to buy pets from stores (i personally dont think you should) I will say that it sounds like your store has a very responsible attitude and you are very clued up on what piggies need, which is pleasing to hear - as pet shops rightly or wrongly are here to stay and are to the majority of people the only known place to get a guinea pig from. I am especially pleased to here you refusing sales on single pigs and the right size of cage... Unfortunately not all stores are clued up and nether does it seem head offices.. Only the other month a local p@h were advertising two pigs with a 100cm cage, which is far too small.

Before I found the forum, I only knew about pet shops as a place to get piggies from and also breeders, our first two girls were from a colleague of Rach's whose mom used to show guinea pigs and had excess stock - so we had our first two girls.
It wasn't until joining the forum that I found out about rescue piggies.. I would only go rescue now as from a good rescue you know the piggies are healthy, often bonded and you are giving a loving home to a pig that really needs a break and a bit of love after a tough start in their lives.

Thank you for being so honest, I believe in education as a way forward for all piggies and having this in pet stores so that the public understand what a Guinea Pig needs is a much needed step in the right direction for the Welfare of Guinea Pigs even if I dont agree with pet stores selling animals and the mass breeding behind them, which is an entirely different debate altogether....
 
Sadly, while some branches are well run, this is not the case with others.

We still have a steady stream of pregnant shop sows (have a look in our pregnancy section!) and there are also piggies who are developing ringworm and URI in their new homes shortly after their arrival (due to stress and a 10-14 days incubation period).
I have personally been caught out several years ago by the fact that the piggies are quite obviously not gender separated during the transport from the Continent to this country even though they were in the shop; that was the personal reason for me to go strictly reputable rescue since. The worst case we ever had to deal with on this forum was a piggy newbie who ended up with lethal babies from a p@h shop sow; thankfully, we have been able to find sanctuary space for the babies with regular access to a dental savvy vet, and they are still going strong.

The biggest issue that I have with pet selling shops is that they are constantly adding to the growing flood of discarded, unwanted pets in this country and the whole Westernised world as they are often impulse bought and treated like disposable children's toys. Over half the piggies ending up in rescues have originated in Pets@Home; and the number is steadily rising - and those are the lucky ones! Rescues are brim full round the year these days.

What has angered me very much this year was the new policy of p@h of pushing baby boar trios, which have a 90% fall-out rate during the first year of their life; we have certainly seen plenty of the aftermath on here since last summer and it has caused considerable heartache to their owners!

There is also still no sign of stopping selling hamster cages as piggy "starter cages" - and plenty of piggy couples end up spending their whole life in a cage they can barely turn around in. Advice is also more than variable, as I have witnessed myself on several occasions.
 
I agree with everything that has been said and just have a few things to add to it about my local branch ... totally incompetant several members of staff unable to sex the animals (adult male pig is not difficult) and giving out horrendous care advice. Oh and whilst I'm here I take in unwanted hams ... 97% have been pets at home origin (either owner saying they were or they were in pets at home only cages that were new so must have been recently purchased so logical assumption, over 50% is definite pets at home)
 
Last edited:
None of the cages sold in Pets at Home meet the minimum size requirement for a start. The same goes for hamsters.
 
I also agree what has been said. Non of my local stores are any good, I recently adopted a guinea pig from one who I was concerned about they asked me no questions just filled form in and took my money and told me some crap about once a piggy gets a uri they have it for life. Absolutely shocking poor info and for all they knew I could know nothing about guinea pigs. I got the piggy who supposedly passed their vets check straight to the vets and got him on antibiotics and he has made a full recovery. My local stores (5 in a 20 mile radius) also will tell you males don't get on and they often have special needs pets for rehoming which always tends to be males who have behavioural problems. Also wrong info on cage sizes 100cm for two boars, really? That's way too small. Trios of males to unsuspecting customers. Wrong sexed pairs. Single piggies. I also have issues where the animals come from, imported and poorly bred.

In my opinion pet shops should not sell animals, rescues are full to the brim with animals who deserve a loving forever home. Its not just pets at home I'm against its all pet shops that sell animals in general. Obviously there are exceptions and you do find caring staff but its the company bosses who are at fault.
 
Another issue that pet shops and most breeders can't do and are usually not even aware of is how crucial character compatibility is to a stable and happy piggy bond. Just sticking two youngsters together for looks, especially boars, and expecting them to get on when they hit the big hormones together at a few months old is not working in nearly half the cases. It takes a lot of time and experience to bond guinea pigs of either gender stably. Sadly, far too many boars end up needlessly single with the moniker of being "aggressive" because of that when with the proper care (and a lot of time) boars of all ages can be re-bonded - provided they find a suitable friend in the first place. P@h adoption centres will happily sell those poor souls on into single situations as "unbondable". :(

There is also the problem that p@h don't ask questions or home check into what kind of conditions they rehome their adoption piggies into. Some branches even sadly still - and quite openly when asked about it by forum members - use the adoption section to get rid of unsold stock!
 
Their should be a code of practice for pet stores especially when selling cages when you're also buying animals. Most of the time they'll sell a cage that is far too small for the piggies or bunnies or other animals. If more people go to trading standards if they find out later that they've been miss-sold the wrong size cage then maybe they'd get their act together. Just look at banks who miss-sell services, they get hammered so why not pet stores. Another thing that should be introduced is a course, maybe only 2 or 3 hours paid for by the pet store to show you exactly what care the animal you're buying & a minimum amount of hours a week you would need to care for your pet properly. If people knew in advance what they were letting themselves in for maybe a lot would be put off & then watch the amount of animals been taken to rescues drop. Good ideas but not likely to ever happen so best thing to do is get your piggies from rescues & their food, housing & accessories from stores that don't sell animals. Companies like PaH would soon stop animal trading if no one was going in there because they were selling animals. I've been into PaH only once in the last 2 years & I'm trying to never go in again. This should have been every piggy owners new years resolution. I should have been a preacher. haha
 
It really does vary from branch to branch. My local branch are really good, cages cleaned daily, all animals fed and at one time my friend told me they had gotten a bunch of piggies in that had ring worm, they had also contacted the breeder and threatened to break away because of those piggies. All were bathed and treated properly before being put on the shop floor, also they had a poorly rabbit that was nursed back to health.

I think they would need a lot more training in regards of 'bonding' before just putting the piggie down as 'unpairable' because he or even she didn't get along with their cage mates. I get the feeling from what I've heard is that new owners aren't aware of cage sizes needed for multiple piggies, what to do if they fall out, feeding and financial costs if piggie is poorly.
 
I totally agree with some of your points. Not all stores will be as good as the one I work in is. If I can say that. In the year I've worked there we have never had a piggie being named aggressive. When sexing them we always ask for a second opinion and I have been shouted at and complained about for doing my job properly and refusing small animal sales and especially fish sales. Our policies are so strict that we will not sell rabbits or guinea pigs in a cage smaller than a ferplast 120. We always tell customers how essential veg, hay and a companion are.

I'm not sure if it's because we're the flagship store that we have to be so strict but we had the SSPCA in for a pet visit recently and they were happy with our store enough to still let us fundraise for them and sell their products.

And something I seen someone else say about them coming in with ringworm, we had that problem with a lot of guinea pigs that came in and we didn't have any piggies on the shop floor for over a month because they were all being treated in our quarantine rooms and by our in store vet.

I'm sorry if I've caused an argument I was just wondering what other people thought and why. I'm also not saying pets at home is the best shop ever I just think we don't get enough credit for all the training we do to learn and look after our animals
 
I think your store must be better than most then as I know someone who worked for Pets at Home and there store was nothing like that.

When I adopted my first pig Gertie from Pets at Home I was sold an 80cm cage. Of course once I joined here I upgraded it ASAP.
 
When I got one of my piggies from pets at home they asked me if I'd had piggies before. I said yes so they checked of everything on the checklist and then sold me him. That was it.

Also my friend used to work in a farm that had piggies. She got them all extremely tame, named each and every one of them and when people would be too rough she'd take the guinea pig away and refuse to let them hold the guinea pig again. She was extremely protective. The owners were extremely happy with her. Because of how much work she did compared to the rest, she eventually had to leave because they were bullying her over it. Co workers. She then tried to get a job in PAH and when she went in for a group interview, this one girl with no knowledge at all of animals, got the job whereas my friend didn't. She was so angry as she'd worked with them for many years and even owned two females. She cannot understand why this girl with no knowledge got the job yet some of the other guys who had some knowledge and her with a lot didn't.
 
MapleLeaf25 said:
I'm sorry if I've caused an argument I was just wondering what other people thought and why. I'm also not saying pets at home is the best shop ever I just think we don't get enough credit for all the training we do to learn and look after our animals
Click to expand...

Don't think you have caused an argument - it's a sensitive subject. I think it's a good thing that you've posted both your questions and explanations. Not the easiest thing to do, knowing this is a rescue-friendly forum.
 
The interview process is strange. It's not About experience it's about being able to work with other people and we had to design a fish tank and find out what fish went in what tanks. Then the work trial was a traditional interview, cleaning cages and vivs, being on the till and putting out delivery. Although it was my second attempt at applying for a pets at home job that I got it.
 
I do agree with you that you should rescue piggies but there's not many advertised on the SSPCA website near me and I'm not sure I trust the people on gumtree to get a piggie when I don't know if they've been looking after it properly
 
MapleLeaf25 said:
I'm sorry if I've caused an argument I was just wondering what other people thought and why. I'm also not saying pets at home is the best shop ever I just think we don't get enough credit for all the training we do to learn and look after our animals
Click to expand...

You haven't caused an argument :) Just a healthy debate.
 
It is great that you are working in a shop that HAS standards and is cooperating with SSPCA/RSPCA recommendations. I just wish there were more of them and hope that your better standard can be rolled out to other shops!

There is a decent rescue we feel safe to recommend on the far side side of Stirling that offers "boar dating" for single boars for our Glasgow and Edinburgh members; you can find it on our list of recommended rescues on the top bar. Sadly there are not many, and even less good standard, rescues in Scotland, so a pet shop is often the only realistic option people have got. We are not so dogmatic that we don't take the location and logistics into account when asking people to consider going rescue! We also don't encourage newbies to guinea pigs to adopt from the freeads, as that can be a very steep and expensive learning curve.

Forums are often the first port of call for advice when things go wrong with new piggies, so we see a fair bit of problems that come from badly managed branches. As we are supporting good standard rescues, we also see what goes on on their side and the impact p@h and other pet shops have on the increasing flood of unwanted/dumped pets that are added to a growing number of large rescue actions from neglect/uncontrolled breeding cases, which is becoming a major problem that needs regulation.
 
Hi there
Thats great that your store only sells 120 cm cages with bunnies or a pair of guinea pigs. I wish all P@H stores did that! You sound like a good employee who cares for their animals.
x
 
High turnover of inexperienced, and uneducated staff!

Immoral, and unethical conduct!

Poorly stocked/ Poor quality service!

Sickly animals!
 
Sadly the exposé on them last year on watchdog opened a lot of eyes to what actually goes on in majority of stores and also where the animals come from. While your store may be one of the rare good ones the rest are lacking. I boycott the place now, I only got the piggy as was told about him. I think on here we see a lot of the fallout from animals sold at Pets at Home and sadly you won't find many of us with a good opinion of the place.
 
There was the other recent expose too, and as much as some people from the chain say it was made up I know for certain that it wasn't.
 
To me its not the shop front that matters (yes it does but bear with me for a moment) its the horrendous rodent mills and inbreeding that occurs producing animals who are genetically weak specimins. Animals with no eyes, missing limbs, extra body parts, etc that all could be avoided with some sense going into the breeding the fact that lethals and eyeless animals are being produced means whoever doing the breeding is absolutely clueless as it is very easy to avoid. I know folks who have rabbits who have had such bad teeth they have barely survived a few years even with regular dentals and an excellent diet, simply not crossbreeding mixed sized species would be a good start in helping the teeth have a good chance of lining up for example. Now show breeding is not popular on this forum but I know some show breeders and health is part of their ethics and most of the ones I know prioritise health and stop breedling from any lines who show any abnormality and thus breed out problems ill stop there on teh breeding front but a good breeder is the polar opposite of a rodent mill which is my point. My local branch appears to have a particularly poor mill supplying them, their hams have terrible lifespans in particular robos who I know of none from a particular branch who have met average life expectancy many not even living a year! Also the russian hamsters they sell, well there is no such thing as a russian dwarf there are only campbells and winter whites who have been crossbred by these incompetant fools and that produces a species with a short lifespan, prone to neurological and phsyical issues not typically found in either species its just cruel. This is all before tameness of the animals is considered, show breeders take temperament into account when selecting animals for breeding, in many species tameness is a scored section of the scoring in a show and they handle the animals thoroughly producing lovely friendly tame animals suitable for pets, these mills do none of this and every ham I have had with behaviour issues and come originally from pets at home. Of course screaming biting pets are going to be handed into a rescue!

Hopefully they stop selling animals in the near future, they used to sell birds and as far as I'm aware no longer do. If they didnt sell animals they're a handy store that I would personally shop in but until then I shall avoid the stores apart from teh odd nosy in the adoption centre, I take any hams with behavioural issues from there .
 
As Lee said Pet Shops are here, they are not going away and the best we can do is educate them. I tend to support our local small pet shop and have built up a rapport that he understands more about piggies and stocks stuff others wont do, such as readigrass which I know I am now not the only customer and the Burgess range.
 
Its the knowledge that I have now of the rodent mills that supply the big chains that has now made me pledge not to go there even for my horse food anymore :( though I did have a good opinion of the local store to me, but you have to look at the wider picture.
 
I have to be honest, I must be lucky but ALL of my local P@H (and Jolleys) Stores are all very good, always have clean cages, the animals look of good health etc etc etc, i was given the third degree when i bought my Toffee from there a few years back, they didn't want to let me have her.

BUT

If and when i get any more animals, it will be from a rescue from now on, not because i have issues with pet shops, although i do think home checks and stricter policies should be applied across the board) but simply because (as said) rescues are overrun with guinea pigs needing homes and due to the ages of some of them they would otherwise be overlooked.
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Just thought I would add my experiences. Firstly all branches of p@home are different.

In my experience I have had good experiences and bad. I adopted a piggy from adoption centre in one branch and they were clueless. The details on wall stated the pig needed "special care" when I asked when they meant they said he was very territorial (wrong word completely). Was advised he needed to live alone (again a lot of tripe as I had him neutered and he gets on really well with his wife-pig). If a lesser understand person adopted him he would have been forced to spend his life alone :( in addition when they gave me the paperwork the reason was different again it said the words "too big" (ie ex shop stock)

The "Charity" is not a proper run rescue it does no homechecks, it makes no attempt to bond single pigs into pairs / groups, it is a way of shifting stock as well as offering to rehome peoples pets as they then get more money in way of adoptees donation so they are quids in.

I bought 3 pigs recently from p@h as I believed 2 were pregnant and one was ill. it turned out 2 were ill and I am still waiting re pregnancy not sure if they are yet but one of the 2 I initially suspected still looks suspicious. These should never have been sold to me as it was obvious that one of them was ill from outset.

the "free" vet check was infact a free nurse check who couldn't even sex them even with a second opinion from staff in back room she couldn't confirm sex!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top