Animal Welfare I went to petsmart today

[spudsthepiget]

I went into petsmart today to get some piggy toys, and stopped to look at the guinea pigs. One was clearly sick; it was rocking back and forth trying to breathe, and another one had crusty eyes. We called a manager over and she took the out the one that was breathing so hard and went to close up the cage. I told her URI's are very contagious and she told me in a snarky tone "I'm well aware of that." But she didn't even bother to take out the other one that was sick.

I want to report the store, but the petsmart website doesn't have a section for that. They have a number and an email link for customer service and a number for their corporate office. Which one should I contact for this? I know it probably won't do much, but I can't sit around and do nothing I dislike these stores so much.

 

[dani_starr]

Corporate office. Anytime you have a problem, calling corporate gets you farther than customer service. I work in food service, and the only time a customer complaint matters is when they call corporate. That's when the iron hammer comes down.

That's so upsetting about the poor piggies, that's why I try my best to avoid Petco and Petsmart like the plague.

A few years back, when I still frequented Petco before realizing what an awful place it was, I was extremely upset to see that the bettas were in tiny cups, stacked on top of each other, and barely had an inch of water. I emailed and called, left a voicemail, and received a call back later the next day from the manager. I was too shy at the time, so I never called back (I have major social anxiety, so phone calls to strangers are brutal). However, I went back a couple weeks later, and the bettas were in much larger cups, filled with water, and not stacked on each other. Granted, it was still a horrible living environment for them, but better by a tiny bit.

 

[koalamissy]

I agree, calling corporate is the way to go. I work part time at Walmart and trust me, calling the store does nothing. Calling corporate really ticks them off. They will then call the store and chew out the store manager and tell them to make it right. Corporate does not like to hear complaints. And in this case, when you can get a federal agency involved, they really won't like it.

 

[spudsthepiget]

Thanks guys! I'll be sure to call corporate here in a little bit.

 

[dani_starr]

Good luck! Be sure to have the stores address handy as well, as they will probably ask you which store it was. If you caught the managers name, that would be good too.

While I am typically an advocate of not naming names, as I would hate to be responsible for someone getting fired over something as small as a bad attitude when the economy is so bad, this is different. This is a matter of the welfare and treatment of the piggies, which is when my compassion goes out the window.

 

[spudsthepiget]

I just put in a call to corporate. The guy I spoke with took my story and forwarded it onto his management team and said they would contact me with a followup in 3-5 business days.