Petsmart

I am new to this forum and was just reading all of the things about mainly Petco. I can't believe how anyone can be so heartless and cruel to animals. I had my own experience with a local Petsmart. I've never had any problems with them and all of their animals, in the stores around here, seem to be well taken care of and the employees are kind and caring, as far as I can tell.
But anyway, I was unaware that there were guinea pig rescues and I purchased a girl guinea pig from a Petsmart in my area. She was, and still is, very healthy and several months later I decided to get her a buddy because I was going to be starting classes again and didn't want her to get lonely or bored if I was gone. I went to the store and fell in love with one guinea pig. I watched her as she ran around and seemed to be healthy....except for one thing....she was breathing hard. I asked the lady if she was sick and she said it was probably from running around. How stupid and naive of me to think she would be okay!! I brought her back the next day and the vet said she had an upper respiratory infection. She gave me antibiotics and instructions on how to get her well again. The store was going to make ME pay for the visit and medicine. But I had none of it, since THEY sold me a sick guinea pig, I'm sure knowingly. I gave her the medicine and she seemed to be well. She still breathed a little heavy but didnt have any sneezing or other symptoms that went along with upper respiratory infection anymore. She did well for almost two months.
Then one night, she was visibly not feeling well and stopped eating. I took her to the emergency room and waited for three hours. She had a seizure in my hand. The vet was stupid, he didnt know anything about small animals, and sent me home with a sick guinea pig and an $85 bill. All he did was tell me she was not well. Oh really???
The next day I took her to the Petsmart vet who informed me she had something wrong with her brain, or possibly cancer. They told me to take her home for a few days, feed her lots of good foods with Vit C and see how she was in a few days. Well that night, I stayed up with my little girl and held her in my lap as she had seizures and eventually died in my hands. I cant even explain how much it hurt me to see her like that.
I called the manager and she said I could come get another guinea pig. Like she was just some piece of merchandise, and they wanted to keep me quiet. After a couple weeks, I returned to see if I could find a young guinea pig and brought all of the paperwork. The sales girl treated me like I was SO stupid and that I had killed my guinea pig. She gave me so much grief and told me things like, don't use Vitamin C drops, they kill your guinea pig, and THIS time be more careful! Excuse me?! By the time I left, I was in tears because, I somehow felt like it was my fault. But after looking back, I realized, I was just unaware that this store doesn't even care. They sold me a sick guinea pig from the beginning and didn't even care. I am so frusterated and upset that my little girl had to go through all of that because they are so incompetant. I have been reading all of the things on this site and I will NEVER buy another guinea pig again. EVER. I will not support that sort of lack of compassion. I just wish that I had known all of that before hand. I think that anyone interesting in getting a guinea pig should read this site beginning to end FIRST.

At least I know my little girl is in heaven now and she knows that I loved her very much. I just hope that no one else has to go through what I did.