Pets at home are at it again

I have today popped in to the charlton pets store to do a check, as some will remmember i go in every now and then to check on the rabbits. Last time they were selling sick babys this time, nearley as bad. I stood and listened to the assistant telling a custermer that the rabbits were youngsters, i told the woman they were adults but she didnt take any notice [ fair enough], but then i noticed that a couple of the dutches had hair missing from the neck. Classic sign that a male has had hold for mating. I asked to seethat one and sexed it as a doe not difficult. Then i asked to see another much more mature looking one, this i checked and showed the assistant a very well hung male and said u call that a baby?.Do u know the sex og the six in together?. The reply was no because the males keep jumping over :roll: . I then pointed out the obvious to him, then he put the male in with another male and a fight broke out so he put it back with the females :roll: I said not to leave it in there but he said he would have to get the vet to check them :evil: As i know from past experience its a waste of time but i called for the manager.What a waste of time that was. He said when they get to big they put down the price and later send them back to were they came, and if they have a customer complain because their rabbit has given birth they will help,[ no dought sell the babys for them]. This is just another example of a big company taking no resposability for their live stock. I will urge u all again to stop useing this company and to spread the word about how irrisposable they are. val

Hiya Val, thank you for your posting.
We have edited out the name of the Company, as we request that no shops names are mentionned in the open Forum.
Best wishes
ADMIN

val i know what excactly what you mean i have stopped using this company for the same reason, my local one was selling 5/6 week old babies (for a customer) yer right :twisted:

i did rescue one out of there because "it was too big) :twisted: :twisted:

but refuse to do it again, it upsets me so much when i go in there i have had to stop!!!!!

but i do use companion care (there instore vets) which i have been told that one has nothing to do with the other, but am not sure....

I have used companion Care a couple of times in the Basingstoke branch, i would not use the Pet shop you are referring to. I was also told that they were independant and they seemed really good.

I got the feeling that they did not agree with the pet shop but were trying to improve things by giving free health checks and advice when people purchased the rabbis. It might be a good thing because if they give advise (correctly) it may stop so many impulse buys.

Lets hope so......



Sorry, ADMIN edit on shop names.
best wishes

never been to the pet shop you mentionned but i was looking today to find a virkon supplyer and found the pet shop have this so i found there was one by us so im going to collect the stuff had have a nose and hope i dont find what u have found, how stupid can u get, i wish the staff would have at least some amimal knowlage as these u described sound like they have non what so ever and if they dont just think about how much knowlage the new pet owner have, this stuff make me so angry and sick :evil: :twisted: :evil: :twisted: :evil:
there is a large pet store not far from me and they can be just as bad iv been there and found sick animals and told them and they told the manager of the livestock and said its fine so i told her we breed and show rabbits and know when a rabbits is ill especilly babies and she even addmitted she had other complaints about the rabbits and didnt do any thing about it. My first rabbits were from this store and they told us a bunch of rubbish and within a few days we ended up at the vets. The one died at 2 yrs from what the vet said of beeing imbreed, and they know who they have there stock off as they have there 'own' breeders, probs back yard breeders
its so typical
becky


Sorry ADMIN edit of shop names.
best wishes
ADMIN

The companion care vets are not part of pets at home but i have it on good authority that they work to targets, meaning that thay have to reach money taken targets so be carefull they they are not pusing for unneccecery treatments. val

Val, this must be incredibly frustrating as it sounds like you approached it in quite a proper manner - I think I'd have found it difficult not to go into an emotional rant. So your knowledgable, helpful approach hasn't worked and we can't just say Oh well we tried (the Royal we - you're doing all the hard work). There has to be something we can do. :idea: I can't remember what was suggested/ discounted last time you brought this up - was the Watchdog option disproved of?

I recommended Trading Standards, and if the large Pet shop chain are saying they don't much care about bunnies being pregnant when they leave the store then I think they might be interested. If you're buying one bunny to be your pet and you end up with a pregnant doe who drops a litter on you, then in effect they're selling unsuitable 'goods'. I know it's not nice to think of rabbits as a product, but if the RSPCA are unable to step then I really do think this is the way to go. They're a shop, and they have to abide by trading regulations, and selling sick and pregnant bunnies is no different from selling broken toasters.

If everytime you find something dodgy going on you make a report, eventually Trading Standards ends up with a file on the company and they'll launch an investigation.

ADMIN edit of shop name.

Here's a page where you can fill in a form that will automatically send your complaint off to your local Trading Standards office...
https://www.consumercomplaints.org.uk/index.asp

And here's the page which lists the conditions you need to fulfil in order to hold a license to sell animals...

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/...hops/Pet_Shop_Licence_Conditions_OCT_2001.pdf

(It's for Herefordshire, but I doubt there's a difference between counties)

6.0 deals with health. It's clearly stated that animals must be treated for any illnesses.

Section 15 is interesting. No animal may be sold if the staff are not familiar with the care and welfare of the animal. That one seems to cover a lot of the situations we hear about.

Thanks for that i have just put in a complaint to the trading standards and copied the pet shops conditions. I am now going to try and contact the watch dog program, arnt computers great. :lol:

some one told me not long ago when i was going to collect Crystal that instead of going all the way to kent why didin't i just go buy a rabbit from pets at home!!!! :shock:

I said to them are you havina a larf!!! it would die within a week or have babies!! they are poorly kept!!! there was no way i was getting a pet from there instead of rehoming one!!! he went on to say but they are all ok runnnig a round WITH GUINEA PIGS!!! good god i thought!!!

Mmmm...totally agree with what has been said and have been following the Pet shop stories on here. We've literally just had a brand new one open up in my town so like alot of you I am now paying regular (sneeky!) visits to it to keep an eye on the rabbits. Must admit the Guineas too and yes they are mixing them - one guinea looked thoroughly fed up the other day - hmmm not surprised!

ADMIN edit of shop name

I've spoken to them twice about the lack of hay in the areas at the Mansfield branch, but have been ignored. I even contacted head office, the next time I went in there was hay, but the next time, none, and no pellets either. Two rabbits were actually fighting over the bin feeders trying to get the tiny morsels that were left.
I said to the boy about it and he just said "I'll check on them at the end of my shift, they're a greedy bunch." I said, "I know, I have 7." It's like, I can keep up with 7 who only need topped up twice a day, but they can't keep up with 4 bunnies in a pen. :evil:

If you find the bunnies in the shop with no hay, grab a bag from off the shelf and feed them yourself. When the only staff on duty are the ones that don't know anything about bunnies and leave them with no hay, there's really no point in arguing with them. They don't pay attention to anything that goes on in the shop anyway, so I doubt they'd even notice what you did.

Yeah I was seriously thinking about it when I saw them... it's a disgusting way to treat rabbits and customers.
Next time I will, and I'll make sure it's on a busy Saturday where all the other customers can see me... They'll be thinking I'm some mad woman who feeds rabbits! But I'd rather that than the bunnies get impaction from not keeping the digestive system moving. :?

Bertie said:

If you find the bunnies in the shop with no hay, grab a bag from off the shelf and feed them yourself. When the only staff on duty are the ones that don't know anything about bunnies and leave them with no hay, there's really no point in arguing with them. They don't pay attention to anything that goes on in the shop anyway, so I doubt they'd even notice what you did.

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I've done that before - I certainly got some looks :lol: :lol: Makes me feel so much better that I am not the only one.

Been back to the pet shop tonight and they are stlii running bucks and does together. Put in a complaint to the trading standards people and have had a reply that they have my email. lets see what happens. val :twisted:
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I'll be interested to hear what they say. Hopefully they'll take more action than telling you to phone the RSPCA.

I cant agree with you enough. This store is a joke, it has been since it first opened as Pet ****, they had their licence taken away and changed names to Pet***** it happened again and reopened as the current names pet shop,. I work as a volunteer at Rspca Medway Branch and have fought against this shop for many years after buying a hamster and it died the next day. Then I took more intrest and was shocked to find the condition of some of there animals. Our aim is to get as many complaint into Rspca Headquaters so they will take action against the store and I hope they lose their licence to keep animals. One of the tricks I have used which they do not like, is standing near the rabbits/guinea pigs and when people look give the phone number of our small animal centre in Chatham and telling people "why pay £20 for a rabbit that might die in a week, when you can give a loving home to one of the rabbits at our centre for a donation knowing that they are fully health checked and vaccinated". I'm waiting to be chucked out of the store as I do not do this quitely, But nothing happened yet.

I urge people to contact the Rspca, if they get enough complients they will have to take on this large company. As this isnt a problem in one of their store it seem to be in most of their stores.

taylor v 109 said:

I have today popped in to the charlton pet shop in question to do a check, as some will remmember i go in every now and then to check on the rabbits. Last time they were selling sick babys this time, nearley as bad. I stood and listened to the assistant telling a custermer that the rabbits were youngsters, i told the woman they were adults but she didnt take any notice [ fair enough], but then i noticed that a couple of the dutches had hair missing from the neck. Classic sign that a male has had hold for mating. I asked to seethat one and sexed it as a doe not difficult. Then i asked to see another much more mature looking one, this i checked and showed the assistant a very well hung male and said u call that a baby?.Do u know the sex og the six in together?. The reply was no because the males keep jumping over :roll: . I then pointed out the obvious to him, then he put the male in with another male and a fight broke out so he put it back with the females :roll: I said not to leave it in there but he said he would have to get the vet to check them :evil: As i know from past experience its a waste of time but i called for the manager.What a waste of time that was. He said when they get to big they put down the price and later send them back to were they came, and if they have a customer complain because their rabbit has given birth they will help,[ no dought sell the babys for them]. This is just another example of a big company taking no resposability for their live stock. I will urge u all again to stop useing this company and to spread the word about how irrisposable they are. val

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ADMIIN edit on shop names

I knew they kept changing their name, I didn't realise that this was the reason. That's absolutely disgraceful. Presumably if you do manage to shut them down again they'll just go for another name change and start all over again.

I have to say, the care at my local store has always been adequate, not great, but adequate. What really annoys me is that they allow people to bring their dogs into the store. Of course they all congregate around the bunny village, salivating, while the stressed little rabbits huddle and hide. It's disgusting. I looked through the list of rules that stores have to adhere to in order to own a license (it's in the link I gave earlier) and it clearly stated there that this was not allowed. I know from talking to other people on the forum that this is in no way restricted to my local store.

I know RSPCA funds are stretched, and you can't speak for all branches across the country, but just from your own experiences, how committed are the RSPCA to getting these stores closed? It's been suggested that rather than ban them from selling animals, rescue centres work with the stores instead. They set up a mini-rescue in the store, take complete responsibility for caring for the animals and vetting prospective owners while the store carries on making its real profits from the sale of food, housing and accessories. Do you think this is something the RSPCA would be interested in getting involve with?

Most Rspca branch are committed in trying to sort out the general welfare of animal in pet shops but branches are committed to areas within their region. So as this store is on a national level it is down to our Head Quartres. I must all so stress all branches are self funded its only the large animal homes that get funding from the National Rspca. So what we do is limited as most our funds go on the animals that are in our care. It is the responsibility of the National Rspca.

I know on a personal basis we asked our local Insepector if she could go and talk with our local pet shop store manger as we had many complaints in the summer about the rabbits over heating. Unfortunately she got a frosty respection, although she was trying to help them. The manger was on the defencive from the word go, all she was trying to do is offer advice and to work together to help the animals, but excuss kept being made and she was told that the complaints were probably made, when they didn't have the adequate staff in looking after the animals(no excuess in my book).
Our inspector now pops in from time to time to check on the animals.

I must admit we can't tar all the stores with the same brush, but they do have a bad reputation and have never seem to want to take help from animal welfare orgainisations. But I i'm only going by our area, but we have tried.

ADMIN edit on shop name