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Petco's idiocy!

H

Homicidal Nymph

New member
Well, today I went to pick up a rheostat for my boyfriend since he doesn't live near any petstore's and since I live in the suburbs there are tons around here. The petstore we went to to get all his stuff (a non-chain "zoo" petstore) had everything we'd possibly need, and I thought petco would have something close to it considering it is a large chain and all.

Well, I went to them and went to an employee:

ME: "excuse me, do you have rheostats?"
HIM: "rheostats?"
ME: "yeah, or thermostats"
HIM: "Oh, yeah, thermostats, we have those. Don't say rheostats, rheostats are only used in big industrial corporations, no one uses them anymore."

I ignored his first ignorant comment and went over to the reptile section, which was a small shelf. I didn't find anything so I asked another employee (the first one was busy with a delivery):

ME: "I can't find the thermostats"
HIM: "They're right there." he points to the thermometers
ME: "No, a thermoSTAT, like the thing you would plug a heat pad into and could control the heat that came out of it?"
HIM: "Oh, a thermostatic CONTROLLER. You can't get those at a petstore! You need to go to a hardware store to get those."

He walked off without saying anything else. I called three other chains and none of them had it. The other petstore is far from where I live so I couldn't go there.

It gets on my nerves how petstore clerks don't know anything about what they sell. I saw a kid with hamster leave the store with a cage so small I wouldn't have kept my baby hamsters in it back when I bred them!
 
Totally agreed! And about the same chain of stores no less!!! Now I will say I have one lady and one lady only that I get help from at my petco because sadly she is the only employee that knows anything...if she is not there I just don't bother. One girl last time I went in (trying to see about when to move my snake up to fuzzies) was shocked when I told her my 5 month, Benny, was eating 2 pinkie a week! Even after we told her that her superior-the gal that i trust-had told me that it was appropriate and that she had been feeding my snake that amount when I bought him she still stood there saying that she had never seen any of the employees feed their corns 2. Stubborn and stupid...a very frustrating combination...
 
Feed them 2! Never! They might actually.....grow!:rolleyes: Pet shops are into selling and not much more. At least the biggie ones are. You've got to find a local petshop that is family owned and small enough to know what they are talking about. There's a really neat one in my town that breeds their own stuff. Everything... dogs, hamsters, rats, snakes, lizards. They don't get them in mass shipments like Petco does. They even have the latest craze... labradoodles. They are a cross between Labradors and Poodles. The pups are fugly if you ask me though. They look like wire-haired labs. But they are supposed to be hypo-allergenic and don't shed as much. But its a cool store because the mom of the dogs they sell is just running around the store and really friendly and you can tell that they don't get their dogs from a puppy mill. And it doesn't stink when you walk in. They also sell frozen pinkies for .79 and fuzzies for .89, which is way better than Petco's 1.29 a piece or 6 for 10.99 (mice on ice)
 
Petco is fine for supplies, but not snakes. Just today I was in one of the Petco's here and they had 5 baby Ball Pythons in the same cage as 4 or 5 hatchling cornsnakes. I couldn't believe that they were in the same tank. How stupid. The hathclings were tiny little amels, normals, and snows. They were hanging out in the fake vines they had in there. One of those pythons could easily have eaten 2 or 3 of those little guys.
 
I gotta say that I went to my local Petco to check out the snake conditions and also the general condition of all the reptiles, and I was pleasantly surprised. The snakes were kept on proper substrate, the turtles had fresh (yes fresh) cut fruits and such in their feed bowls and everything looked very clean. I was really surprised and pleased.
 
I have seen good and bad Petco stores. Fortunately, we have a pet store not too far away that is pretty good with their reptiles and they're staff is pretty knowledgeable.
 
Ahh.. PetCo.. The closer they are to the corporate office, the better they tend to be. There are a few out there that DO know WTF they're doing, and sadly, quite a few that just don't. The selection of corn's in PetCo depends on where the GM decided to order from. The more expensive corns (70$) are from Cal Zoo (At least that's how it works at all the PetCo's I've gone to), and tend to be better morphs. The cheaper one's are from gosh knows where.. I would talk to my GM pal and find out, but it dosn't matter.. Anyway, PetCo can be a good resource if you find a good one... The trouble is finding one.. lol.

Laine
 
The Petcos in the "Western Regions" are supplied by CalZoo; the "Eastern Region" stores get their corns from Gourmet Rodent.

regards,
jazz
 
Same thing up in Canada, we have a huge chain, Petsmart, that has like nothing and stupid workers that walk away from you when you try to approach them. I shop at Pices instead which is a little company but big store that has everything, and go figure, the people taht sell the snakes actually own snakes or reptile and know what they are talking about!
 
lol since we're all shareing petco horror stories....

The petco just down from my house (just off 35th and peroria for those familiar with the area) is filled with wonderfull people.... They will stand and argue right in front of you who is going to get a few feeder mice, or who has to go assist somone in the reptile section, and that is when the manager is there. When the manager is not present, they out flat ignore you..walk away, pretend that you are not standing there talking to them and say they can help the person behind you like you are invisible.

They don't bother cleaning the cages for the rodents or reptiles, they only clean out the substrate when they get new shipments. And you can bet your but the only animals that get fed there are probably the geckos... But even then I have walked into Petco three times to find that most of there animals were all dead.

This one instance provides as a perfect example...just out of curiosity I decided to go into the store and check on the reptiles and to my disgust found that two of five ball pythons were dead in the display cage, followed by a red tail boa, ten anoles, all of the geckos, a turtle, and six or so corns. All just sitting there, and by the looks of the corpses they'd been there for more than a few days, I tried to tell an employee about the dead animals to which she simply replied "so," I sincerly wish I had a camera to send a pic to their 'superiors' not that it would do much, but even a big chain store like Petco has got to care about the condition of their product on the shelf even a little bit.

So now I shop almost stricktly at a well run mom and pop pet store of Glendale ave.

Ahh thats better..it feels good to vent off my two cents...
 
oops almost forgot to add...

and the only knowledgable staff that I have ever met, worked there for maybe a week and were gone.
 
jazzgeek said:
The Petcos in the "Western Regions" are supplied by CalZoo; the "Eastern Region" stores get their corns from Gourmet Rodent.

regards,
jazz
Click to expand...
PetCo SGM's can elect to buy from either in the Western Regions...I'm not sure what choice they have in the Eastern Regions.. My GM pal buys from Cal Zoo all the time, and thus gets in better morphs. :)

Laine
 
If that was the case, I highly reccomend calling in and submiting a customer complaint. I'm sure it'll be forwarded to Bill's desk (He's the head hancho animal guy for this area)... And I'm sure he'll be in to check it out, I'm pretty certain he lives in Phoenix.. maybe CA though, but he's definatly here enough.. There is no excuse for that.. I may have to go check it out myself, I can be quite vocal when needed :D... And how long ago was this?

Laine
 
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