Breaking Investigation: Animal Abuse at PetSmart

I work currently as a petcare specialist at Petsmart and I work extra hard to maintain the animals to the best of my abilities. I always take sick animals to the vet in our store. I am ENCOURAGED to take all sick animals to see the vet and we are actually told to enforce vet care for sick animals. We even mention that to anybody who buys animals in our store that they receive vetrinary care. I am vigilant in taking care of the beta fish which are shipped in normal size cups not little bags at our store. I do see cases of wet tail and of overcrowding of certain animals which I do feel powerless to control. I only try my best to make sure the animals are kept clean and have fresh water and food at all times. I witness coworkers who neglect animals and I have to pick up their slack. Numerous times I complain about coworkers who don't do enough but I also work with some really wonderful employees too. The truth is that many people are excellent animal caretakers and many people are not. That is really an individual thing. I have had to sell animals to people knowing that they would probably not take the best care of that animal and all I can do is try to inform them to the best of my abilities and to stress how important it is to do the right things for the life of their pets. That is the best I can do and I do it extremely well. What other people chose to do is their own responsibility. I do think owning pets can be very rewarding and some people are excellent "pet parents." Other people should probably not chose to own a pet but I don't have the right to say who can and who can't. I think for some people nurturing and caring for a small animal can be a lifechanging thing for the better.

I've been a petcare specialist at petsmart for almost a year now and this is totally ridiculous. Every sick animal must see a vet even if its only a simple eye infection that is treated with TOB drops. Wettail is a common thing that occurs in small animals either by stress or a virus. Its very common and highly treatable with antibiotic and anything similar to kpectin. My manager has personally taken home many of the serious cases regarding our "sick room". A white dumpy tree frog many hamsters and birds. In the case of the frog she actually had to wake up every 4 hours during the night to make sure he was sprayed down and moist. There is a lot of dedication to the treatment of our small animals. If not for moral and emotional reasons there are company incentives to make sure we dont have "pet loss". Certain quotas must be met and losing the reported "hundreds" of small animals over a period of time would be a huge violation which would trigger higher management attention. As far the cannibalism within the small rodents i guarantee that this was a "male only" petsmart. all petsmarts are either female or male that way there aren't any unnecessary births among the rodents which as we all know is highly common. the males tend to be more aggressive and even with plenty of food can still turn on their litter mates and show these cannibalistic tendencies. Ive witnessed this first hand with black bear hamsters in our new arrival room. with a full bowl of pet block mixed with seeds there was still a half eaten hamster in the cage. things like this just happen being ill informed is what leads to these assumptions that they are so hungry they kill others for food. regardless of the pet care department she totally neglected to mention petsmarts cooperation with local shelters many of which are no kill. millions have been saved and petsmart charities is continuously fueling local shelters with funds whether they be from voluntary associate payroll contributions or charitable customer donations. i know that my store also helps out by writing off supplies such as food and cat litter for the shelter we work with. This alone should bring applause from the peta community. i wont bother to go into all the details about countless checklists regarding animal care. but some include beta water being changed out every other day fresh water being supplied every morning then checked that night medicating the sick animals twice a day so on so forth. this store that the investigater worked for must have been a strange case and like others have posted her not making any changes to their procedures since she seems to be such an expert on the matter makes her behavior disgusting. She could very easily have taken those animals to the vet which by the way is located in the store or personally checked to make sure all animals have food and water it's not that hard its on your opening and closing checklist. Basically this whole story has no backbone to it expect she worked for a terrible store and was a terrible pet care associate. That's about it.

that was crule for what all the people that hurt their pets they can attack them back once they have anough of being abused byt their and they will be killed if they get seriusly injured and abused its not a good thing to go to our animals they have the same reason we are in the world today soon enough their will not be enough animals in the future

I work at a Petsmart Canada. The company itself has nothing to do with this cruelty! If you knew what their procedures were for sick animals you would know that they HAVE to see a vet if they don't respond from isolation. Petsmarts problem is the shitty employee's who don't care. When you hire a bunch of young parttimers who just want to get things done so they can go home obviously stuff like this is going to happen. It's not an excuse but don't blame the company because as far as it knows the logs are signed saying that the proper care is being given. its the employees who don't follow through with it.

Besides the small animals what about the beta and the feeder fish that are cramed in tiny tanks.And the beta that are put in tiny cups that they have to bend their body in.