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hhermann
May 6, 2009
Animal Abuse
I have visted this pet shop in the Meadows Mall quite a few times to look at the animals while shopping and everytime left angry and upset for what has been seen in there. But today completely took the cake. I am appalled at how I was lied to and also about the condition of the animals.
I went inside today to look at cats and birds and skimmed around the dogs, in which none had ANY food NOR water. They all looked stressed, unhappy, unkept and dirty. A bulldog in particular seemed to be patch balding and infection around the eyes. A couple mutt mixes were shaking really bad and had mangey coats. Upon approaching the cats I was shocked and disgusted. The two persians on display where ratty and mangey, feces stuck to their bottoms, tails and their fur was increasingly too long and shedding badly. The black one looked like it was in alot of pain and had quite a bit of gook around the eyes. A small orange kitten came next. It was unkept, underweight and was far from playful. Instead it was huddled in a corner shaking. The other cats on display also looked dirty and sick with no fresh food or water, and very antisocial. The display tags were misleading as well. One display of tabby kittens was named for "scottish folds". I know scottish folds because I've been wanting one myself and when I inquired to one of the emplyee's they tried convincing me that the mixed tabbies in the display were infact scottish folds. (Munchkin ones no less, and they didn't have short legs at all) I didn't even have time to ask questions before she shoved high prices down my throat.
There was a cage with two small pigs in it in which they had no food at all, only wood shavings in the bowl. Under their cage were two rabbits, one of which (the black one) had bite marks all over it's neck and missing fur. They had no water in their cage. I could see into the back section another cage of rabbits with two brown females huddles into corners..they honestly didn't even look like they were breathing at all and their faces were stressed. I also caught a glimpse of a white chinchilla looking underweight and lathargic. Finally came the doves...one in particular was missing feathers around it's neck and had bloody scabs all around it. It was pretty depressing...
I asked an employee (who pretty much looked nasty and unkept too) about the birds issues and she rudely stated with obvious pauses; "We have the vet coming in tommorow." I replied with "Alright...what about the cats and dogs? Why are the unclean, no food or water and look like they have medical issues and depressed?" She stared at me for a moment and studdered with a quick "We have the..um..the bather coming in tommorow too." Funny, how I ask and I get a quick reponse that the animals will get their attention. I asked that if I came back tommorow would the pets would be cleaned and treated properly? She completely ignored me and dissapeared into the back of the store. I was god smacked. Their food is also messy brown dry chunks of crap. It didn't look like pet food at all..more like cardboard.
I snapped pictures of some of the animals on a cell phone for the humane society as well. After reading countless reports of how horrible this place is, let alone with cheating people out of their money and lieing along with seeing with my own eyes; I question why they haven't been fucking shut down. For a store that carries "High Fashion" considored products for pets, why do their animals look like shit? It was like walking into a starving animals concentration camp.
The times I have visted before I have seen cats especially in worse conditions and bloody marks on rabbits backs with upset me pretty badly, since I am an avid rabbit lover. I was tempted to buy a suffering persian kitten the last time I was there but the lady said she wouldn't sell it to me unless it was cash and around $3, 000 because it was "pure breed"..which is another load of bull. They charge extra costs to cheat you out of money and slowly kill their animals. I wouldn't be suprised if they let the animals get into that condition as a manipulation for people to spend large amounts of money to save these animals. It's abuse...$3, 000 could save countless animals at a shelter...and this store has no excuse for letting these animals get into these deplorable conditions.
Don't shop here, period. Unless you want to pay some massive vet bills. The only way I recommend spending money is to buy every animal there and give them a true home and a chance at life instead of dieing slowly in a cage.
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October 7, 2008
Blood Money
On August 30, my husband and I wandered into the Pet Emporium not really intending to buy anything, just to look around and visit with the critters. Behind the fiberglass enclosure at eye level I saw the soulful, friendly eyes of a little 13-week old male Abyssinian Blue kitten looking back at me. Even as I stared apprehensively at his $1500 price tag, the little guy had that certain something that money couldn't buy: a rare personality, and lots of it.
I looked over our potential purchase and took note of his extremely lean body, which is also a trait of his breed, but I couldn't help wonder to what extent was such thinness normal? His back end also revealed traces of loose stool in his recent past, which I mentioned to employee "Vicki", who was a little too quick to assure me that the kitten had been evaluated and approved by a vet and had all his current shots. The kitten's appetite seemed healthy as he chowed on some unusual pale yellowish/brown chunks of dry food in his little dish. We went home to think about it...and decided to come back for the little one, since diarrhea should simple and treatable in kittens.
On August 31, we signed our lives away to take the little guy home, and the pet store included a bag of his "usual diet" to help ease him into his new home. Okay, fine. He really seemed to like that chunky light brown stuff. As they presented the kitten to us with a little ribbon around his neck, I hardly took heed to the tiny patch of chalky fur on his left shoulder, which really looked like something had dripped onto his coat like kaopectate.
It was soon clear as I unpacked his take-home chow that this food was nothing like what he had been eating at the pet store. Small, hard, dark brown, windmill-shaped pieces tipped out of the oil-stained lunchbag into the bowl...apparently also to the kitten's dismay as his nosed around the pieces with less than enthusiasm. Oh well, I thought, and just began him on his future cat food diet instead, which he devoured happily. As husband and I filmed the kitten's first day home while he played with his new toys, the chalky patch on his left shoulder seemed to be more noticeable.
The diarrhea, however, became the bane of our existence as the days passed with no sign of improvement. As per the contract with the pet store, we took the kitten to THEIR vet first, who sent the kitten home with two packets of FortiFlora to restore the enzymes in his gut. They did not put this treatment on his record, which may or may not have been suspect. The FortiFlora, which the kitten LOVED, had no impact on his problem, and in fact it began to escalate.
SEVEN days after we brought the kitten home, he began bleeding considerably into his runny stool, even though his appetite was voracious as ever. I called the Pet Emporium and "Vicki" placed the blame for the kitten's problem on his food change. When I pointed out that the kitten was NOT sent home with the same food I knew he had been eating at the pet store, Vicki adamantly responded that nothing had been changed and that the kitten WAS sent home with his usual food and that I was at fault for changing the kitten's diet against instructions, hence the diarrhea problem. The fact that the kitten was bleeding into his stool seemed to be of no additional consequence to this woman. She repeated that the kitten was stressed and that his diet had been changed and that I was to place him BACK on the food he was sent home with, (which he clearly detested). In my gut I felt this employee was counting on my ignorance and was making up anything that sounded official to get me off the phone.
The next morning, the kitten was less vigorous, pale, and "floppy". The amount of blood coming out of this tiny creature was alarming and I recognized the signs of anemia as I watched him. I felt obligated to phone the pet store again not for advice (which was patently unreliable) but to inform them of the situation. Vicki said the kitten was pale because it was dehydrated (?!?) and suggested feeding the kitten human baby food mixed with human baby rice cereal. If the situation wasn't so dire, I would have laughed. This woman's advice, in the face of all the facts, was ignorance beyond measure and a potential death sentence to the kitten if followed. Within an hour I whisked the kitten to our OWN vet a street away.
It was immediately clear that the kitten was underweight for his age (barely over 2 lbs. at 14 weeks), and had a longstanding inflammation of his intestines. The chalky patch on the kitten's shoulder was becoming a bald patch with flaky skin, which when put under a black light glowed like a light bulb: a certain sign of some kind of fungus. The kitten was placed immediately on a regime of Metronidazole (anti-infective) and a topical medication for the fungus.
I took the paperwork showing these findings to the Frisky Pet Emporium personally, and was subsequently witness to some of the worst B.S.-ing I've ever heard in one sitting. Returning to the subject of the discrepancy in the appearance of the kitten's food from store to house I was told that the small, dark brown pieces had been SOAKED IN WATER to make them look like those large HARD yellow-brown pieces I had seen in his cage. ( A kitchen test at home proved this was a bogus claim...one of many). They claimed his prescribed medication was actually indicated for de-worming, not as an anti-infective, and that it was not an appropriate treatment for the kitten's diarrhea (though in truth it killed the diarrhea after the FIRST DOSE) . They swore by pet kaopectate as an instant and permanent cure for all diarrhea and spewed stories of its miracles to me, even proffering a free sample for me to take home and try on the kitten IN PLACE of its prescribed meds. (!!!)
The ruthlessness of the employees at Frisky Pet Emporium to keep their clients misinformed and their sales final was (and IS) the most lethal example of criminal disregard for the welfare of their clients and animals we've had the misfortune to be mixed up in.
OCTOBER 7, 2008: Six weeks of treatment, which have so far cost over $714.00, have slowly begun to bring the kitten back into the level of health he should have been in when we saw him at the pet store August 30. It may have been easier to have returned him to his fate at the pet store when the level of his ill health was realized, but he was fighting for his life harder than the pet store ever would have, and no animal should be left to die just to prove a point.
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