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What's in your pet store animal?

Paula

Pigaholic Extraordinaire
Cavy Slave
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Posts
6,024
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Messages
6,024
And don't get me wrong, I believe that the word about adopting from animal rescues and other places like that should be told to other people, but the first time I asked a question on this site I put the word "buy" in my post and tons of people jumped on me.
Well, no. You didn't just put the word "buy" in "one" of your posts.

You said the following:
Well I live in a small city that is barely starting to grow (due to UC Merced), and a lot of the small business pet stores here that would rescue animals or have information on shelters lost business and closed ever since PetSmart came around. Now it's a bit difficult to find places, I think the closest is about 10-15 minutes away and my cousin used to work there and said the animals were not in the best conditions.
So that is why I had decided to just buy them...but I suppose I will have to keep looking. I had already gotten attached to a pair

Yeah I took your guys' advice and went on the PetFinder but the closest male, young piggies I could find were 2 1/2 hours away which is too far from me. I live in Merced, CA and at the beginning of the year a 2 1/2 hour drive would have been nothing but our car has been having an overheating problem, we've spent over 400 trying to solve it but it continues so my radius of travel is small. We don't have money to buy a new car and my moms wastes lots of gas. My options are limited =(

And I feel that I would rather save a few piggies from mistreatment than look for ones that I cannot get a hold of. I only have one family member that could pick up the piggies for me (the ones by the bay area) but that would be my grandmother, whom is not pet savvy, or knows much English and who works everyday as a housekeeper. I honestly don't see a way, once/if I find any, to get them to me unless the shelter hand delivered them to me or are willing to drive to a point only 40 minutes from here
As far as I can tell it's one excuse after another that served to justify your choice to buy from a pet store despite numerous people urging you not to.

Instead of letting one person tell me and then letting me make my decision for myself NO ONE paid any attention to my question and instead decided to turn my thread into an adoption vs. pet store one. Honestly, one person telling me about how bad petstores were would have been fine. But I think that when everyone gangs up on you like that it puts people off of this site instead of inviting them in and helping them to stop making the same mistakes or any mistakes.
Actually, your question on the coroplast was answered. Furthermore, I find it rather baffling that you came to this site that is so very clearly pro-rescue, anti-petstore, pro-adoption, anti-breeder and proudly announced you planned to buy a pet store pig (despite being given numerous legitimate reasons not to do so) but then have the audacity to be "appalled" that members of this forum suggested that buying is not the way to go.

Some people don't have the ability to drive 2+ hours away from their home and that is not their fault. I know that doesn't mean that they should buy a pet where it's convenient for THEM but if they already did it then just tell them once and move on. 10+ people repeating the same information in at times rude ways is NOT convincing and it puts people off.
But you ran right out and bought from a pet store where it was convenient for YOU. And no, not everyone has the ability to drive several miles from their house to acquire rescue animals, you're right. But the point you seem to be missing entirely is that owning guinea pigs is also not something everyone is entitled to. It's not a need; it's something you want. Just because you can go out and buy them doesn't mean that you should. If you're in a position where you're able to provde for them a great home and life, and you also want to do so, that's awesome.

But if you can only provide mediocre care and can only manage to get to the nearest pet store to buy an animal like a pair of socks, then, really, perhaps you should consider that the animal(s) in question are in better hands than yours already, or at the very least, are no worse off. The tragedy in the case of most pet stores is that the staff employed there really couldn't care less what home they are releasing the animals into as long as someone's got the bucks to plunk down and pay the asking price. Which is a practice that will continue as long as there are people like yourself that can't be bothered to wait or to drive or to search for a rescue pig and will instead walk in and buy the animal(s) they want simply because they can.

So although this information IS very important I think we should concentrate on how we tell people so that they do not get put off and continue to make other mistakes that perhaps some small answers to questions could have fixed.
The way in which you were told most certainly didn't make the slightest bit of difference to you, did it?

There's no shame in buying an animal when you don't know any better. When you've been made aware of the atrocities pet stores perpetuate and you opt to buy anyway, well, there is and should be shame in that.
 
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