unfortunatly, taking a job at a petshop often makes people think they know everything about the pets the place sells. it happens in any store though

i'm sure if you let him know it politly he'll thank you for the info. i've corrected pc store employees many times about giving wrong info and made a few friends out of it. i've also been corrected about stuff in the grocery store that I work at. if you explain why something thier saying is wrong and be nice about it, then most of the time they will be nice back to you.

otherwords he'll keep giving out wrong info and somebody might believe it and injure thier iggy because of it. then they might call the manager and get him fired.

Remember the Mary Poppins song about a spoonful of sugar? "...A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down..." That's the concept we all need to adopt when dealing with pet store employees and others who subscribe to incorrect information but insist they're right. Be nice about correcting someone and they will tend to listen.

I had this happen with the reptile department manager of my local exotic pet store. He had some baby sulcata torts that were beginning to show evidence of pyramiding, and I commented on it... he became defensive and said that they were supposed to be like that. I politely explained that we have two healthy adults and their shells should be smooth, etc.... I've since been coming in regularly to get food for my brother's Bearded Dragons, and have developed a rapport with him. Last time I was there, he told me that he was researching how to better care for the sulcatas to stop the pyramiding and prevent it in new arrivals. I smiled... on the inside... knowing that my gentleness with him early on allowed him to see me as an advocate instead of an adversary; which has wound up benefiting the torts in the long run.

As frustrating as it gets when dealing with anyone who comes off defensive and arrogant, just remember... it's not about YOU or THEM, it's about the animals. Remember to complement them on what you see they're doing RIGHT. Sometimes biding your time and going slow with the suggestions pays off better in the long run.

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck

(this mainly pertains to anyone who's against telling the employee,)

i was thinking about this topic while at work today, and I can't believe that you'd just let poor iguanas die due to the employee not knowing he is passing out bad info. just like the reptile can't choose his owner, they also can't choose who the owner gets thier info from. you'd rather say 'don't talk to him' and take the easy way out and let him possibly cause iguanas to die instead of telling him he was wrong? so what if it can possibly lead to other bad info. tell him he is wrong about that aswell. if you really care about reptiles in general, you'd also help people learn about them in petshops and anywhere else instead of letting poor innocent animals die just because thier not yours to worry about and just because you don't feel like taking the time and effort to help them learn.


here was my encounter with one of the ruder know-it-all employees
when I baught my python a few years ago, the employee suggested useing ceder bedding for him. i told him that ceder bedding tends to help mite infestations and is toxic to repties. he laughed and said I was wrong. i told him I wasen't. after a few mins of this he brought up the "i think I know what i'm talking about, after all, i work here" excuse. i got a bit annoyed at his arrogence then, but I stayed calm, looked at him in the face and calmly said "i know you work here, and you might know alot about the animals, maybe even more then me, but just because you work here doesen't mean you know everything. to me it just means you wanted a job to get some money and/or wanted a job here to get employee discounts" he looked at me without saying anything. then I told him "its ok if you don't know, thiers lots of people don't know. its impossible to know everything about reptiles since thiers too much to know" he then calmed down and asked what a better bedding would be. i pointed out the repti-sand and calci-sand and told him a bit about how thier small granuals made it easier for larger aniamls to pass them in case of accidental ingestion, and told him about how the calci-sand is made of calcium so it can be easily digested if accidently eaten. he then thanked me and went upto a different customer that he told to buy ceder bedding and appologized and pointed them to a repti-sand and calci-sand.


i live by the saying of "treat others as you want them to treat you"
when it comes down to it, a little niceness goes a long way.
remember that people are still people no matter where they work. so they can still make mistakes and can still learn.

Calci-sand is a terrible product. I causes impaction and is not easily digested. Pet store employees push the product because it sells well and has to be replaced often so they can sell alot of it as opposed to carpet which can be cleaned several times before being replaced.
If you keep any of your pets on calci-sand I would advise you to rethink it for their own well being. I would elaborate more on the dangers of calci-sand but I have a meeting to be at in a few minutes. I'm sure someone else can come along and fill you in. If not, I can do so later.
I understand that you were well meaning with the suggestion not to use cedar, but sand isn't much better.

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"What is now proven was once only imagined." - William Blake

~*~Lacey~*~

My Photos

Zaroba, thank you for a great example of how to deal with rude, defensive pet store employees (pse). You're exactly right "a little niceness goes a long way," and it sounds like you handled that situation in a way that helped that pse realize that you weren't bashing him but were merely concerned with the health and well-being of the animals.

Please check out this article on substrates. The HCN staff recommends solid substrates (carpet, newspaper, etc.) because we believe it to be much safer than any particulate substrate. Perhaps there is less danger for an adult animal that is fed outside his habitat, but eliminating particulate substrates in an enclosure altogether also eliminates the chance of impaction due to those substrates.

I don't want your awesome example of how to handle a pse to get lost in the substrate debate. So again, great job in handling that situation!

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck

i'd like to chat more about the bedding stuff. will post a new topic about it in the general forum....or wherever.

I was just doing that, zaroba. lol I've merged our threads here: question about bedding types for a tortoise.

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck

Oh, fun topic...

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http://dragcave.net/user/manhirwen

Zaroba, well done in explaining your approach to difficult pet store employees. However, I don't think anyone on here was necessarily saying do not speak to the employees who get it wrong, I think you might have misunderstood their points of view.

In any case, I would always speak up.. I have done so in the past at our local pet shop, where it would seem that although the employees have worked with these animals for years, they haven't had the intelligence to pick up some information about them. I haven't always been so polite either, - I'm not recommending that you go in all hot headed, but sometimes is has been the only way to get through. For example, one time this store was keeping a fence lizard with some bearded dragons; these two species get to completely different sizes and requite totallly different habitats. I politely advised the workers that the species shouldn't be kept together, to go back a week later and find that it had not been housed alone yet. I politely explained again why the lizards shouldn't be kept together and why, and a couple of weeks later the lizards were still together. After attempting to explain the requirements of each species several time and still not getting a result I spoke to the manager in quite some anger and threatened that he would lose our custom and would receive a visit from the SPCA if he didn't separate the lizards and provide them with the right environments, crucial to their health. It worked, but I'm afraid they still don't seem very knowledgable about the reptiles they sell; they recently had their monitor put to sleep because he was ill and kept suffering from prolapses, because his main diet consisted of rodents - lethal in large amounts to monitors' health, and should only be fed as treats on top of a large diet of insects.

Not everyone can know everything - there is always so much to learn. But if you are not sure about something then you shouldn't pass any knowledge on in the event that you might cause the eventual death and suffering of an animal. It would seem that too many pet store employees do this and give others a bad name.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

the posts by replover and herplover at the bottem of page 1 seemed to me like they were saying to not confront the employee.

if I did misunderstand, i appologize to you guys.