The stupid pet shop quotes thread.

In light of my 'enlightening' experience at P@H yesterday (and someone elses suggestion) ......please post all those great bits of 'advice' you have been given or overheard from our favourite animal retailers.

I need a good laugh.

An old colleague of mine used to tell customers you couldn't get female buns spayed as they'd die under GA :roll: I soon learnt to pounce on anyone looking at the buns before she did (and direct them to RR :lol: )
Also not the staff but at another petshop I worked at, I had a customer trying to argue for us to sell her a guinea pig to go with a rabbit as "the RSPCA book said it was OK so you can't tell me it's wrong) despite me going into all the details why it's not! The RSPCA don't even recommend it so don't know how old that book must've been :roll:

I've heard plenty of stuff both in the stores and thrhough others.
One time wasn't even something said by the workers, in a sense I was the worker at that time as I was working in a pet store for a week trhough my school.
A little girl noticed a hamster cage shaped like a large spinning wheel, she asked her mom what it was and her mom said it was a guinea pig cage.
I just had to say that she'd be having problems getting a guinea pig in there. Strange how many get those two species mixed up:roll:

Another thing, this I haven't heard personally but read it online once. A pet store worker had once said that rabbits could live with guinea pigs because they lived together in the nature. Even though the domestic rabbit comes from Europe (Spain according to my sources) and guinea pigs comes from South America. Don't know if there's any rabbits in SA? Anyone know?

There was also one day I came to the store and got a little frustrated at them. I had bought my rabbit a rabbit harness, which turned out to be too large for her. So I asked for a dwarf rabbit-harness they suggested a cat harness:roll: Cause cats are definitely smaller than dwarf rabbits..... Didn't buy the harness. Got a Dwarf rabbit harness later.

Yeh my wish has been granted! :lol:

Went into a small independant pet shop recently. There was a cgae with two rats in, and they had babies.... the were very sweet. The owner came over and I asked how many babies there were. He said

"I don't know, I've never counted"

Surely wouldn't you count them so that you could keep an eye on them, incase any go missing etc?

I was chatting to a pet shop owner 12 months ago, she told me that I could never put another bun with Bertie(bun) she said with him being an only bun for 14 months he would die of a broken if I brought another bun into the home:? me not knowing any better at the time believed her :evil:
Since then I found Rabbits united and have gone on to bond Bertie with his wifey Fizz. I have also got a bonded pair of outdoor buns aswell now

Yes my P@H moment of the visit yesterday was being told that a rabbit which had always lived on its own could never live with another rabbit :roll:

Well in Norway it seems to be common knowledge that you should always buy two same-sex rabbits from the same litter and keep them in the same cage together:roll: Never experienced such a pair working out....males often needed to be either separated or neutered at 4 months age and females tend to fight at 6 months if not spayed, which far too few is:roll:

I got my rabbit at P@H. she is my 1st rabbit as I have never been a rabbit person until now. Anyway I asked them what type of rabbit she was and they had absolutely no idea. They also had no idea about her age either. I looked her breed up in the end, but you'd think they'd know seeing they sell loads of bun buns.

drpengie said:

I got my rabbit at P@H. she is my 1st rabbit as I have never been a rabbit person until now. Anyway I asked them what type of rabbit she was and they had absolutely no idea. They also had no idea about her age either. I looked her breed up in the end, but you'd think they'd know seeing they sell loads of bun buns.

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The two I saw yesterday were apparently 'dwarf lops'. Both were bigger than my medium cross bred lop.....one nearly as big as a Frenchie cross I have had :shock: maybe everything with lop ears is classified as a dwarf lop :?

I see mislabeled pets in pet stores all the time.
Domestic rats are very often labeled "hooded rats" regardless if they have the hooded marking or not. One day I found a litter that apparently was mix of hooded and dumbo:roll: Which is crazy, as rats don't come in breeds, hooded refers to the colouring, and dumbo is the shape of the ears. So a rat can just as well be dumbo and hooded at the same time.

:wave: Not a pet shop quote, but I think worse..
I was told by the first vet that we took mine to (for a 'free health check') to just feed him pellets, no hay, nothing else, pellets.
I immediately voiced my concerns over that advice, and was told that there is enough fibre in pellets not to worry about hay, and would I like to buy the pellets that they have for sale... :roll:

Needless to say, he never went back there, but if I hadn't read plenty of info first, my lovely bun would have paid for his pension I think

when i brought an unwanted Black lionhead from a petshop they were selling him off for £5 because he'd been there for about 6 months poor little guy i told the petshop asistant that i was going to get him neutered and bonded with a one of my girls and they told me that it was very dangerous to get a rabbit neutered and that it was impossible to bond two adult rabbits :roll: :roll: i just turned to the assistant and said well ive had 2 males neutered and a female speyed and their all alive and kicking :roll: although i did fail to mention that most petshop buns sold as a bonded pair normally start fighting once they reached maturity :roll:

JayUK said:

:wave: Not a pet shop quote, but I think worse..
I was told by the first vet that we took mine to (for a 'free health check') to just feed him pellets, no hay, nothing else, pellets.
I immediately voiced my concerns over that advice, and was told that there is enough fibre in pellets not to worry about hay, and would I like to buy the pellets that they have for sale... :roll:

Needless to say, he never went back there, but if I hadn't read plenty of info first, my lovely bun would have paid for his pension I think

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I've heard there are some brands of pellets that have so much fibre in it that hay isn't neccassary, it appeared in a convo about a rabbit not wanting to eat his hay, I wouldn't go for only pellets if my rabbits in fact eat their hay.

Hay is good for teeth wear though so in that respect it is a better alterantive than high fiber pellets.

Sooz22 said:

Hay is good for teeth wear though so in that respect it is a better alterantive than high fiber pellets.

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That too. My buns luckily eat their hay, unless they're on the lawn, they tent to only eat grass

Someone was buying a rabbit and asked the girl if she had to buy hay, the girl said yes you need hay for the bunny to sit on :? I was like actually you need hay for the bunny to eat. But I suppose at least she was telling people that they did need to buy hay

I'm currently looking after 2 rabbits and a guinea pig that are victims of P@H 'advice'.

Their owner originally wanted 2 guinea pigs but was told that 2 pigs would not get on with eachother, much better to get 2 rabbits and a guinea pig! Oh yes, and rabbits can live perfectly well on guinea pig food it is so suited to their nutritional requirements!

The female has been spayed but the male isn't. When their owner comes back, we're going to have a long talk I think about the proper care of rabbits and guinea pigs.

I'm not sure who I despair of more, P@H or their owner for not reading up on the animals before she got them.:?

Not in my local store, but was told by the young guy that he had seen wild rabbits and wild guinea pigs living in the wild together just a few miles down the road. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sooz22 said:

The two I saw yesterday were apparently 'dwarf lops'. Both were bigger than my medium cross bred lop.....one nearly as big as a Frenchie cross I have had :shock: maybe everything with lop ears is classified as a dwarf lop :?

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:lol: I think I've told this story once before, but I remember going into P@H and there being a rabbit there labelled as a 'dwarf lop' (and he really was), but the sign with him said that he couldn't go with other rabbits. The reason given below? 'because I am too big' :lol: He was dinky!


I know they might have meant 'too old' (which in itself is incorrect, but hey ho) but it did make me laugh anyway :lol:

'Yes, you can buy 2 male rabbits together and they will NOT need to be neutered, as long as they always have lived together.' Is what I was told.