[Spider]

I'm new to this forum and probably shouldn't be bringing up a contraversal topic so early but this is one thats close to my heart.
Has anyone ever brought a class action suit against Petco for selling poor, diseased suffering animals?
I don't know how many times I've rescued some helpless creature from Petco, fallen totally in love, than watched as my adorable pet endured a series of unimaginable health problems. Spending money I can't afford to try and help a creature in my charge whos suffering. This story is repeated all over the country by people who have purchased Rats from Petco.
Why is it nobody has done anything about this disgrace, if they sold Dogs that were raised the way the Rats were, and came down with similar illnesses people would be up in arms!
I would just as soon no Rats were sold there than the way they're marketed by the barrelful.
Petco is selling Rats for pets that have a 75% chance of of coming down with a serious illness within a short while, this is outrageous!
If anyone has Legal Savvy, please weigh in on this.

 

[linz_04]

I have no idea about the legal part of it... and I'm totally with you about WANTING to save the poor little things from Petco.... BUT, when you buy them from there, it just makes Petco get more and more. You try to save their life, but then they'll just replace them with other sick rats and this is what keeps the company going. The cycle will not end unless people totally stop buying pets from these chain petstores, which won't happen because MOST people do not care as much about the pets as you and I and the other people on this forum.

I can't talk, my 3 girls are from Petsmart, which in my opinion, is better than Petco (in my area at least.) My gerbils and all my fish are also from Petsmart (which is beside the point) The local Petco we have is HORRIFIC, I can't believe the condition of their animals that they have ON DISPLAY! And what about the "sick" ones that they hide in the back?! The store reeks like urine and feces and the cages are TINY. There's obvious sick animals all over the place. I just can't stand even going into the store. I don't shop at the Petco by the way.

On the other hand, our local Petsmart is much nicer. Not sure if the manager there is the cause of this (I'd guess so) She's TOTALLY for the animals and I've talked with her MANY times about this before I got my rats. She has even taken animals from the "sick room" that she didn't think were getting the proper care from the Petsmart vet and taken them to the exotic specialist in this area with HER OWN MONEY. She reassured me that if ANYTHING happened to my girls (even after the 14 day guarentee... she said up to a couple months) to bring them back and she would see to it that they would be taken to the exotic vet, get the meds they need (Petsmart paying for all this) and then back into MY care for the administration of meds, etc. Luckily I haven't had to do this... I'd probably take them myself just because I can't stand being away from my babies. Petsmart ALWAYS has clean cages with plenty of room and toys for the pets and they seem to truly care.

With this being said, I'm totally against the mass breeding they do to stock the animals in these stores. I know I contradict myself because I bought from there. But before anyone tears into me for this, I tried EVERY shelter in 100 miles and tried to find breeders and came up with no luck. I guess rats just aren't that popular in Iowa. I found 1 rat rescue in my same town and emailed her but she had only rats that were older than 2 that she wanted to keep for the rest of their days.

I tried a local private owned pet store but OH MAN the animals there had it WAY worse than Petco. They didn't look necessarily as sick as the petco pets but the living conditions were way worse. They had a chinchilla in a cage about the size for a hamster. TONS of rats packed into small, dirty cages. Puppies in cages stacked from the floor to the ceiling with nothing on the wire to sleep on (not even a towel). I look at the pets and walked back out.

Sorry to not really answer your question, but unless CRUELTY is PROVEN, I'm not sure much can be done legally.

 

[twitch]

i know there has been class actions taken on petcos before but i'm not sure where or what the result was. perhaps google it? i bet you'd find lots of information and examples to start from.

 

[Rodere]

Your best bet would be to google it. Unfortunately, the law doesn't much care about rats as animals, so you would probably have to talk about them like it being a matter of property. It's the same thing as a place selling a broken item to you and you being unable to fix it.

Unfortunately, there isn't much you could probably do to PetCo. For one, it is a huge store and has a lot more money than you could probably spare to drag out a legal battle and fight with you. Try getting pictures of the conditions at the previously mentioned store anfd turn them into your local Humane Society and also contact the PetCo corporation itself after looking at their store 'rules' on their site. Point out ones that the particular store is in violation of. For one, it is against company policy to sell a sick animal.

Large chain petstores definately aren't the place to get your pet rats. Two of our rescues came from there, though their original owner bought them, not us. We, in fact, rescued them from her! But one is healthy and the other is ok, but has had some problems. For one, we think she had a stroke or seizure one night. We nearly lost her. She wouldn't move, wouldn't eat, etc. I made oatmeal and put some different things in it and had to make her eat it. Luckily she came out of it ok, but you can still catch her slowing way down at times like she is about to have a stroke or a seizure.

 

[lizzydeztic]

picket outside. that's what i'm planning on doing this summer. let the general public know before they go into such a terrible store. and hand out brochures. it's not only the rats that are sick. i've seen sick fish, i've boughten sick fish that spread disease to the whole tank. i've seen sick bunnies, gerbils, hamsters, chinchilas, and ferrets. they could care less about small animals and it's terrible.