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I was just asked to leave Pets at Home :o

Carrie1983

Warren Scout
I went into pets at home. I wanted to get some stuff for the cats. I popped by the rabbit and GP section and, as always, was miffed. In one very small area they had 8 smallih rabbits and their area stank. I passed that one and then saw the giant rabbit enclosure - must have been about 1ft x 3ft big; and yes, I've seen this before, but having just lost my giant at the weekend, I was feeling a bit sensitive. The rabbit had no hay or food in its enclosure and it was on its own. There were various reasons why I felt uncomfortable with what I saw - smell, lots of droppings everywhere etc. I asked a shop assistant to tell me some stuff about the giant - how much food it would need, how big a hutch it would need etc. He showed me their big hutch that they sell in there and said that it was meant for the giant and larger breeds. :eek: This hutch has one level and is about 6ftx2ft maximum! I asked if the rabbit would grow any bigger etc... I was asking questions as if I was a real novice (although I'm not), and he clearly didn't have the first clue and was giving inadequate information and advice. If I had been Joe Bloggs off the street, then this info could be quite dangerous!

Anyway, I think I should get to the point and say that I gave him both barrels. I don't feel particularly proud because the lad is probably only paid £6 an hour, but I asked why they were recommending for giants to be kept in such a small hutch, why they told me this rabbit would not grow any bigger when in fact it would at least double in size, why it had no food or hay to eat at the moment or any company. It went on and he started to give maybe HALF a barrel back in the form of excuses. He said 'I'm going to get my manager to come and deal with you.' The manager came down and was clearly not too bothered about what I was saying and said I was detracting their custom and could I please leave. I was told to leave the shop and only to come back on the basis that I would like to actually buy something (well I did want to buy something actually!).

I wasn't abusive, but I was quite firm and told them that what they were doing was not really on. These poor little mites are just going to end up, on the whole, sold to inadequate homes. I can't believe I was asked to leave for detracting from custom; maybe if their general customer base knew the facts, they would steer clear anyway!
 
Contact head office - I'm sure someone on here will have the details to pass on to you. They apparently take action on this sort of thing and will 'have words' with the branches when they receive complaints. PAH head office started working with several small animal rescues a couple of years back and apparently welcome the input
 
Surely Pets at Home head office are complicit with this, though? They need to be training the staff better and they need to be providing more adequate accommodation for when the animals are there. Ideally, they wouldn't even sell rabbits as the noises - screaming children, dogs etc - are quite frightening for a kit that's been taken from his mum too early in any case.

I will write, as I do tend to do that kind of thing - write complaint letters that is - but I don't expect to get much apart from excuses sadly.
 
Thats why I am doing the Awareness Day at P@H this Sunday. I got my first bunny Ted from there as at the time I did not know there were such things as rabbit rescue centers and the fact that people buy a bunny and then decide its not what they want and get rid of it.... I have since got Ted a chum called Flo and we got her from a rescue center and would not now go anywhere else to get a bunny... they are very much on love and I am so glad to see Ted in bunny heaven when she licks his head and ears...
 
I went into pets at home. I wanted to get some stuff for the cats. I popped by the rabbit and GP section and, as always, was miffed. In one very small area they had 8 smallih rabbits and their area stank. I passed that one and then saw the giant rabbit enclosure - must have been about 1ft x 3ft big; and yes, I've seen this before, but having just lost my giant at the weekend, I was feeling a bit sensitive. The rabbit had no hay or food in its enclosure and it was on its own. There were various reasons why I felt uncomfortable with what I saw - smell, lots of droppings everywhere etc. I asked a shop assistant to tell me some stuff about the giant - how much food it would need, how big a hutch it would need etc. He showed me their big hutch that they sell in there and said that it was meant for the giant and larger breeds. :eek: This hutch has one level and is about 6ftx2ft maximum! I asked if the rabbit would grow any bigger etc... I was asking questions as if I was a real novice (although I'm not), and he clearly didn't have the first clue and was giving inadequate information and advice. If I had been Joe Bloggs off the street, then this info could be quite dangerous!

Anyway, I think I should get to the point and say that I gave him both barrels. I don't feel particularly proud because the lad is probably only paid £6 an hour, but I asked why they were recommending for giants to be kept in such a small hutch, why they told me this rabbit would not grow any bigger when in fact it would at least double in size, why it had no food or hay to eat at the moment or any company. It went on and he started to give maybe HALF a barrel back in the form of excuses. He said 'I'm going to get my manager to come and deal with you.' The manager came down and was clearly not too bothered about what I was saying and said I was detracting their custom and could I please leave. I was told to leave the shop and only to come back on the basis that I would like to actually buy something (well I did want to buy something actually!).

I wasn't abusive, but I was quite firm and told them that what they were doing was not really on. These poor little mites are just going to end up, on the whole, sold to inadequate homes. I can't believe I was asked to leave for detracting from custom; maybe if their general customer base knew the facts, they would steer clear anyway!

I think that was very brave Carrie, especially considering what you've been through recently. Well done you!
I had a little set-to with the manager at my local store back in the heat wave about the young giant who's respiratory rate was too high and was suffering from heat stress. He told me the ice pods were definitely all cold (condensation on them like my ones....er no!) and he would be checked every hour! I told him that he wasn't listening to what I was saying and that this rabbit's breathing was too high and he had heat stress....so he eventually relented when I kept repeating myself and said it would be checked now! Of course it would be :roll::roll:
At the till I made the point again and got a very rude lady full of attitude who told me the vets check them all the time (there is a Companion Care at the back of the store) so I said that was very heartening to know and i was just letting them know, as a customer of the store and making purchases I had a right to make my concerns known and I had hoped that a conscientious store would welcome that!!
I left vowing never to put money into their pockets again - I think they need to improve their attitude and appreciate that their customers are the sort to care about rabbit welfare and they should encourage and welcome this! Of course i complained to Head Office by email from the website - I suggest you do the same Carrie if you can spare the time. :)
I'm sorry, it must have really upset you today :(:(
 
I don't know what the term 'giving both barrels' meansb :oops: but I do hope it doesn't mean causing a scene?

I'm fairly sure that, as with all head offices, the P@H head office cannot be on-site to monitor the staff at each of its stores all the time and so they will rely to some extent on the customers notifying them if something is wrong in their local store. It could be the odd store with especially bad management, or the staff member in question forgetting his training/exaggerating your behaviour to the management (i.e claiming you were showing threatening behaviour to the P@H staff) causing the manager to give you that attitude. Either way, assuming that you were not unreasonable or loud/causing a scene, a letter of complaint to the head office should suffice, especially if animals were left without food and/or water :shock: That's animal-care basics.

P@H have been (slowly) getting better and are much improved from what they were, but they do still have a way to go.
 
:O No I wasn't causing a scene!!! I was telling him why what he had just told me/ how he had answered my questions was not acceptable. He went to get his manager to deal with me presumably because he had no answer to that. The manager asked me to leave after a conversation with me himself, not directly after me talking to the staff member and it was because as we spoke customers were walking past us and he was more worried about them hearing what I was saying than about the issues I was raising!!

And no, they can't be on-site all the time, but they do have area managers who regularly visit the stores in their catchment to check up etc. This is not the first member or the first store I have had this kind of issue with, but it is the first time I have queried it in such a way that they had to give me answers.
 
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:O No I wasn't causing a scene!!! I was telling him why what he had just told me/ how he had answered my questions was not acceptable. He went to get his manager to deal with me presumably because he had no answer to that. The manager asked me to leave after a conversation with me himself, not directly after me talking to the staff member and it was because as we spoke customers were walking past us and he was more worried about them hearing what I was saying than about the issues I was raising!!

I think it's important people speak up, if no one ever did then nothing would ever change! If politely and tactfully it causes the store a bit of public embarassment and that is what is needed to improve things then I think it's worth it personally. I'll say it again - well done Carrie - hopefully it might have forced them into atleast fetching some food and water. I'd have done EXACTLY the same thing. Complacency gets you nowhere with animal welfare.
And actually, following an email to Head Office from myself last time they were very good and responded very politely and actually requested that in future any complaints be made directly to the store manager first - so Carrie you did the right thing in Head Office's words too! Well done :)
 
Thanks, PrettyLupin. I do feel I did the right thing, and the more rubbish he told me, the more worried I was about where these rabbits would end up. I don't DO causing a scene, but I am pretty fierce with words and will never back down until I am given satisfactory answers, which usually gets me places. No one gets anywhere in life by being abusive, so I'm not. No one gets anywhere in life by being a wall flower and turning a blind eye to things they don't believe to be right or fair - so I don't.

Being asked to leave a shop when you're simply having a conversation with the manager, is ridiculous. It would seem he simply did not have the answers I wanted and could not satisfy my query as to why the information I was given was given to me, falsely. Customers probably didn't hear and didn't care - I could have been talking to him for any reason and actually he was talking more loudly than I was and more loudly than was necessary - but they were walking past and his eyes were moving round really uncomfortably, as if he was making sure no one was listening.
 
:O No I wasn't causing a scene!!! I was telling him why what he had just told me/ how he had answered my questions was not acceptable. He went to get his manager to deal with me presumably because he had no answer to that. The manager asked me to leave after a conversation with me himself, not directly after me talking to the staff member and it was because as we spoke customers were walking past us and he was more worried about them hearing what I was saying than about the issues I was raising!!

And no, they can't be on-site all the time, but they do have area managers who regularly visit the stores in their catchment to check up etc. This is not the first member or the first store I have had this kind of issue with, but it is the first time I have queried it in such a way that they had to give me answers.

Aha I see, sorry I just have never heard that phrase before I wasn't sure what it meant. In that case I would have done the same thing, it's a shame they didn't want to listen to you :( but yes do take it up in written form to their head office, if people continue to raise their concerns in the way you have then hopefully they will keep addressing the problem and therefore continuously improve their levels of care and knowledge of the animals they sell :)

Does seem like he asked you to leave because he didn't have enough knowledge to answer your questions nor the decency to hear you out and takes notes to raise with whoever he needed to raise them with :?
 
I think you're right in that they are improving, but I can't feel comfortable with the environment anyway. It must be so distressing for these babies who have been peeled from their mums at 8 weeks old. They can only do the best with what they have, though, I suppose. The bun did have water, so that's one positive. It was food it didn't have.
 
Snap Carrie1983 !

I'm very pleased to meet you. Join the club for I to have been asked to leave P@H & its happened to me twice !

It was two different stores & a few of years ago now.

The 1st time it happened, I had asked to speak to the manager regarding an adult rabbit in a pet shop's idea of an medium sized indoor cage with a baby (& I do mean a baby) guinea pig with a sign attached saying:-

"Friends - buy bunny & get his friend for free"

The poor little guinea was trying to hide in the corner of the cage making scared piggy noises while the large bun was sprawled out, taking up most of the available room.

When the manager turned up I was polite, authoritative, didn't raise my voice but made it quite clear that none of it was acceptable:- piggy/rabbit combo, scared baby, the BOGOF-discounted price to get rid of an adult bun, too smaller cage, all againist RSPCA recommendations etc etc.

I told him I wanted the guinea pig put back with the rest of it's litter mates & the rabbit was put in a bigger run & that I wasn't going to leave the shop until he did it & had his assurances that he wouldn't do it again.

He got it done & then asked me to leave the shop which I agreed to do but informed him that I & my friends would keeping a close eye on the store to ensure they didn't do it again & if they did we would be reporting it to the local RSPCA inspector.

The 2nd time was when I in a different store & wandered over to the rabbits to make sure they weren't pulling the same stunt. While I was checking I overheard a lady asking a member of staff questions about getting a rabbit as a pet for her young children. The young lad told her:- "rabbits were excellent pets for her young children, after all they weren't like a dog that needed excercise & they didn't cost much & were fine on their own but she could always get a guniea pig 'cos they get on together really well & you don't endup with lots of babies, which you would do if you got an other rabbit".

I jumped in & corrected virtually all he said. I explained I was an experienced rabbit owner, a member of the RWAF & I helped out at a shelter so I did know about the care & welfare needs of rabbits. While we were talking, the member of staff went & got someone else who asked me to leave. The lady said "Well, she seems to know what she's talking about " & followed me out of the shop.

Following our chat outside the store about suitable pets for her family, she went to the shelter I was helping at & adopted 2 gerbals.

I would like to say that when I complain, I'm firm but always polite, never raise my voice & try very hard not to get sarcastic. I was a manager of a large customer contact/service centre who had to deal with complaints all the time so I do have a bit of sympathy for complaint handlers & speak to them how I would wish to be spoken to. There's the old saying "You also get more bees with honey than vineger".

Well done Carrie1983 for complaining. If we don't give feedback on company failings, they can't put things right.
 
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