[Marina_7]

On the topic, just this last week I have seen two incidences of animal abuse in petshops.
I went into the local ma and pa petstore a couple days ago. They had three guinea pigs in a the smallest "starter" guinea pig cage, dirty as can be. They were so sweet, popcorning around cause they had just gotten some Hartz pellets to eat. No hay in sight. Underneath them was a degu, that was dying. It was laying on its side, with laboured breathing. Pretty sickening. The owner wasnt there and some kid was working. I asked him about the poor thing, and said his manager was dealing with it. Yeah, sure.

Then, another day, I went into Petcetera (a Canadian petstore chain.) They dont have puppymill pups but they make up for it with the large amounts of small animals they carry. Well, I looked at the hamsters and there was this one black guy with a missing eye. He had half a chunk bitten out of his nose. Pathetic.
Also, there was a little male pig that was all by itself in a corner cage (another cage with 5 pigs was "showcased" in the center of the area.) He had dirty water, no food. I asked an employee about him, they were like "Oh, there is one in here?" Atleast, that got him some fresh water and food. I was really sickened. I am totally against buying from petstores but I was really tempted to take that little guy home. He was a underweight, little tricoloured american. Well, hopefully he will find a good home....

I used to work at at store awhile back and man had it has gone downhill. I think I am going to write a letter to the owner, stating that though he goes on about how wonderful he is to have a SPCA adoption centre in his stores he should look into treating the small animals with some respect!