My experience with a Pet Store customer.

[Scarlettexeyes]

Today, I went to Jacks Pet Aquarium just to check up on the animals. I usually do this about twice a month, and when I go in and I see something wrong, I cause a fuss. However, today was different, I saw a mother, and her 2 daughters walking around the store with a cart filled with bad guinea pig items. She was planning on purchasing a new guinea pig, and I obviously could not control my urge to tell her no!

After the Sales Clerk went away, I told her the horrors of buying a pet store animal, and how 90% of the things she was planning on buying were bad for her potential new pet. She was very nice, and was asking me a whole lot of questions that she felt the Sales Clerk did not touch on. (obviously)

All she bought was some CareFresh, and a wooden hidey house. We went to the parking lot, and I gave her this website, and all the knowledge I had learned from this website. Also, I have her a phone number to a guinea pig rescue.

The best part is after all the good & bad things I told her, she was still up for the challenge. She kept thanking me over and over again, because like many of us, she would have wasted money on bad guinea pig items, and not even known it. I also gave her my phone number just in case

The moral of the story is that if you do go into pet stores, and you see someone about to make mistakes for ANY animals life, politely ask them about it, and 9 times out of 10, they'll thank you for the advice, and tips.
Making animals lives better starts with their humans, and if everyone just stopped and helped someone else from making the same mistakes we did, then I really do think we could make a strong impact.

I just thought this would be a cool story to share.

[keehnle]

Glad to hear you had such a positive outcome with this lady. Hopefully she will call you for future advise and come to this board!

[Scarlettexeyes]

I truly hope so.

[magiccookie]

Well done...I hope she joins the forum.

[Scarlettexeyes]

I hope so too, she seemed really dedicated to the welfare of her potential guinea pigs.

[rjramer06]

After my own experience with pet store animals (losing a baby guinea pig to a lower respiratory infection after only 1.5 weeks), I will NEVER again purchase an animal from a store like that. I have told everyone about my experience and hope that word of mouth will get the message across too. I truly hope that women took to heart everything you told her. That was so brave of you to talk to her like that too! How easily she could have just brushed you off or took offense to what you were saying. I wish I could get my own aunt to listen to me about her guinea pigs, but sadly she feels that everything she's doing is "just fine" because her friends that are gp owners don't do half the stuff this site recommends either.

[Scarlettexeyes]

I've always been an outgoing person, so I will definitely go up to a person and be like "Hey, dont buy this!"

It saddens me when people don't do their research and they think pet store workers are certified to give out pet care advice.

Word of mouth is the BEST way to give good advice. People trust their friends more than people on the internet most of the time.

Education is the key to stop animal mistreatment!

[princesspoppy]

well done,you should pat yourself on the back.I only wish someone had helped me out when i got my furry friends.Im very happy to have found this site.