I went to PetSmart yesterday afternoon to pick up some worms for my box turtle. Whenever I go there I always check out the animals they have.

I was looking at two baby Leopard Geckos they had, they looked pretty good, nice fat tails. Then I happened to glance down and saw a baby water dragon acting strangely. I watched it try to step out of its water bowl, it twitched and fell on its side, half in and half out of the water. It twitched one more time and then appeared to die right before my eyes. I went and got someone who worked there and he tried to tell me that it was "sleeping" I insisted that it was dead or dying and he went and got someone else. When they opened the cage and picked it up, it was limp in her had and barely moved its head. While it was still alive it was not going to be for long. I was so mad. Why sell these animals if they aren't going to care for them??? There was 3 Uros (I can't spell the whole name ) in a cage next to the water dragon, that the cage was so humid there was water running down the glass. Aren't they supposed to be kept in a very arid setting??

It broke my heart to see that little water dragon suffering. I wanted buy all that they had and take them home with me.

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Kelly

My pets:
Leopard Gecko ~ Ducky
Rabbit ~ Chester
Kitten ~ Lil Fang
Black Bear Hamster - Charlie
Parakeet ~ Ray
Eastern Box Turtle ~ Ollie
Hermit Crab ~ Mr. Crabs
Teddy Bear Hamster ~ Poppy RIP 7/12/07

Yea, PetSmart is bad, same with Petco. I rescued one of my 2 iggys from Petco. She was 16 1/2 inches snout to tail. She was almost completely black and severely stressed. She had skin adhering all over her and her spikes, dehydrated, emaciated, lack of muscle. And the manager said she was fine and he had pleanty of iguanas!!! When she was lying there at the bottom of the cage!!! She is just recovering from it all (we saved her on 5/22/07) and she is just beginning to shed of her verrry old skin, Shes so bright underneath!!!
This is her about a week or two ago:



Petco & Petsmart are horrible!

That is so sad, Kelly. Really heart-breaking.
Unfortunately, "rescue" from a petstore just promotes their business. If they can sell sick and dying animals, they will and then they will get more and the problem will continue.
Only if no one buys these poor sickly beasts and they continue to drop dead in the shop, is there a chance that the situation will change: either they will not sell reptiles anymore or they will learn to care for them properly.
It breaks my heart too, so I try not to go into shops like that.
Koi, I'm happy for your iggy that she was saved, but what the manager told you speaks volumes: there are plenty more where yours came from and he has NO IDEA how to care for them!!

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Andrea

That really is a shame. Part of there problem is there "caresheets" were written when the company first went into business and are so outdated. The 2 stores we have here both have fruit and veggies available for there Leopard Geckos even though they would starve to death before eating them. I've pointed it out to the manager and was told "Company policy requires us to follow our caresheets to the letter"

Oh well

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Ken
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem." -- Ronald Reagan

Fruit and veggies for leopard geckos You need to make a HUGE stink and report it! The Petco we have over here is ok. They are required by law to have a vet and if the animals are sick thay have to have them treated. I have occassionaly taken some of their sick animals when they call me, and I stress that they call me. However I do not pay a cent for them and require that they have them treated already by the vet and be on all meds and also require that they hand over their vet records. That in itself is nothing great either because they see the dog and cat vet. But it is a start.
Petco and petsmart usually get a lot of these animals in sick since they buy in bulk and get tremendous deals, however that does not excuse their poor husbandry in some of the stores that they have!

hence why I just got my new frog from a local shop, who purchases from local breeders. I flipped at Petsmart the other day. They had a gecko and a frog in the same enclosure! And their pacman frogs were tucked away in tiny tupperware containers about 5 times the size of them.

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My name is Liz
Do what's best for the animal, not what's best for you.

wow! I have never seen that kind of stuff around here! But then again I do not go there that often either.

I have to say, I've had very bad experiences with pet stores like Petsmart and Petco. (Petco especially, I've seen some bad things in.) I have yet to have bought a reptile from a chain pet store that wasn't sick right from the start, or died early. I once went to Petsmart where they were selling iguanas and water dragons, and asked them how the care of water dragons was different than the iguana. They told me the care was the same, and probably would have told me that I should house them together if they thought it would make me buy them.

When parents ask for "docile" reptiles, they'll pick out the sick ones, telling them they've got a sweet temperament. It happened to me with my first iguana, Etcher, actually. I got him when I was around fourteen, and even though I did research on how to care for him, I was still naive about a lot of things. One of those was that the animal I was buying was going to be healthy just because it was from a store. Less than a year later, I was paying for surgery on the poor little guy's eye.

Beside the point, I guess. I always want to rescue those little guys too, but buying them just tells the store that they can do whatever they want and get away with it.

It would be a good idea, actually, to call animal control and explain what you saw and see if they would investigate the store.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

I can't stand petco I bought my baby bella a leopard gecko there and I found out after I bought her she had sand impacted in her. I was so mad I went there with my vet Bill and they offered me a $25.00 gift card I just looke at the manager and she gave me cash. I then went to look at the leopard geckos and that tank was nasty, there was a baby gecko she couldn't open her eye. i got one of the useless workers to look at her. They put her in a box to take her to the Vet the next day. I am sitting here wondering if they really did. There was so much feces in the tank it made me sick. I went home and email the board of health and they went there. It was on the day after they clean the cages. A month later I recieve a call from the regional manager he wanted to meet with me about the problem I had with my vet bill and all. I met eith him he gave me the money for the vet bill in cash, another $25.00 goft card and offered to give me a free leopard gecko which I did not get because I have 4 right now.
I was told that the people who work in thr reptile dept are trained and take a test. That is hard for me to believe. I was also told that the vet petco uses recommended the leopard gecko's be put on sand. HE IS AN IDIOT!!!!

One thing you have to remember about the vets that Petco and Petsmart use is that they are mostly dog and cat vets and hardly ever see exotics. They are probably very good with the furry little critters that they see but have no real idea about the reptiles. For instance every time they have a sick rabbit or guinea pig they are always being treated with the proper meds and such (well at least around here). However the reptiles are not treated as well because of their lack of knowledge. Most of all the problems with the reptiles could be prevented with proper diet and husbandry, if you do not even know what the proper husbandry is for that reptile then it is pretty hard to treat the actual problem.

I once had a vet tell me that ALL snakes have TWO sets of FULLY FUNCTIONING lungs.

I would just love to know what animal be it reptile or mammal has TWO sets of lungs, lol