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Petco vs. Petsmart

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wyatt

Guest
this is only going by my two local ones.
PETSMART:
"We care about pets" yeah right. they do not. every living thing in there is swimming among their fallen companions. and they let them stay there until they decompose. the newts are labeled wrong, and fed wrong, just as every thing else. and once, i was going to get two new fiddler crabs for my tank, and the woman there said they need a heater and a filter, but nothing about salt. they don't need heaters or filters. they are filters. salt they do need, but they don't supply it.

PETCO:
no dead bodies floating around in the tanks. everything is labeled right. a nice assortment of herps. some tanks are a tad small, but they are temporary. beautiful set ups. not too many empty cages, and what i found most surprising was a turtle tank that was decent!

winner: Petco
 
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jeff

Guest
I would definitely agree, Petco is much better about keeping their herps than Petsmart. I've also noticed that Petco keeps one species per tank, as opposed to Petsmart which will keep species in with others (they were keeping green, gold and Cuban treefrogs in the same set-up). Petsmart also keeps their FBNs with the FBTs, while Petco is smart enough not to. Maybe the most sickening thing I saw once was in a pet shop (Scamps?) in Lloyd Center up in Portland, OR. There they were keeping two ceratophrys(horned frogs) in one tank. I say were, because the green one had the albino half way down it's throat. When I informed an employee about the situation (the albino probably could've been saved), she just shrugged her shoulders and said "oh well"! That was approximately 10 years ago, hopefully they've changed their policy since then.
 
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jon

Guest
I agree that petco is a much better petstore out of the two listed. They keep their species all housed seperately just how it should be. Though the petco's around where I live do not carry any salamanders. Just curious if thats for all petco's, or just in my area for some reason.
 
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meghan

Guest
We have both stores here and if I had to choose one over the other, Petsmart would come out on top as far as cleanliness, price and variety. But neither store has knowledgeable employees when it comes to caudates. They specialize in 4 legged friends, birds, fish and reptiles. Even then, I've had bad experiences with fish advice in the past. Best thing anyone can do is educate yourself before you obtain new species. You'll be better prepared once they're home. Of course it's all an ongoing learning experience...
 
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wyatt

Guest
mine has no caudates, either.
it all really depends on if the store has DETERMINATION TO MAKE MONEY OR DETERMINATION TO KEEP ANIMALS HAPPY! if we took all the petcos and all the petsmarts, more petcos would be better than petsmarts.

(Message edited by mrnewt71 on March 12, 2005)
 
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mark

Guest
I would have to agree that petco wins also, although nothing makes up for all the petstores that do treat their animals like crud.
 
A

alex

Guest
THANX FOR THE ADVICE
biggrin.gif
 
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jeff

Guest
Yeah petco does better with the herps, but neither store has caudates in my area anymore. I like the blue crayfish things my petco has right now.
 
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mark

Guest
Yeah, I once had one of those for like a year or so, they like a little cave, if you get one, be careful, because they are really good jumpers out of the water, I would know.
uhoh.gif
 
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josh

Guest
i had the pleasure of actually working in a petsmart! ....yeah that lasted about a week.....lol! that place friggin sux! you see it even worse when ur behind the scenes and you see what they call "treating" the animlas and the info they are supposed to give. they hated me within the first week cause i was telling customers how to acually take care of their animals. i wasnt doing it the 'petsmart way' so they didnt like me. i actually took some customers to home depot to help them get necessary supplies for a cheaper cost and told them how to actually take care of their red eared slider....ya know, one of the baby ones that you get at street markets and they tell u that they can live in a fish bowl forever and wont get any bigger....dont need any light...nothin... yeah, one of those red eared sliders. it was getting metabolic bone disease and i took them out on my day off and helped them get everything they need and set it up properly. if that aint customer service, i dont know what is!!! they hate me for it.
 
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jeff

Guest
Well, looks like Scamps has learned their lesson... or so I thought. I'm up here in Portland, OR visiting the grandparents and I went into Scamps today. While they actually had their pac-man frogs separated this time, something else in the store turned my stomache. They have a Bufo marinus in the SAME TANK as a Gibba Turtle (Phrynops gibbus). I've just done a little reading on P. gibbus and guess what they primarily feed on in the wild? That's right, Anurans (specifically larvae). Also from what I read, they're quite aggressive. I'm about to call Scamps to let them know what idiots they are. You can too! Their number is (Mods, please edit this if this is not allowed) (503) 281-9777.
 
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rachel

Guest
We have both around here, and I just got a job atPetsmart. I think petstores just vary from region to region. In the fish community Petco is know for being horrible and Petsmart is known for doing very well. Our fish are all alive and healthy, in clean aquariumds. We have frogs and toads, separated by species in clean enclosures, a few different reptiles, some birds, and the usual assortment of small fussy things.

One thing I espcially like about Petsmart is they only sell animals of the same gender at any given store, so they don't have their rodents breeding out of control. They have female mice, rats, hamsters, water dragons, geckos...Petco often lets you take home a pregnant rat.
 
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joan

Guest
Is this why when I went into petsmart the other day (the boyfriend needed bloodworms, and the Petco we normally go to had none), they had not only two dead warty newts (of some species) in with one absolutely starving cynops, but kept their pacman frog in a completely aquatic setup? Just a variation from region to region? I have never once gone into a Petsmart in the greater Detroit area and not seen dead somethings in their tank. Petco at least quarantines their animals for some length of time.
 
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rachel

Guest
My Petsmart doesn't have caudates, just a couple of geckos, a pixie frog, a water dragon, and a blue-tongue skink, all in appropriate enclosures. I've never seen a dead fish there in the years I've been shopping, but Petco usually has several dead animals in their tanks. So I'd say in my area Petsmarts are definetely better than Petcos.
 
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josh

Guest
rachel, petsmart is a corporate store with their corporate rules. there is no way those animals could be taken care of properly because at every petsmart across the nation, they have to care for the animals in the same exact way.....the petsmart way. i worked at one....i know....and ive seen petsmarts all across the west coast and mountain zone. its all the same...horrible. how can you call it good care when they use suppliments like jurrasical or reptivite?? how can u call it good care when they are feeding them malnurished crickets?? (the cricket food they feed is not nutritional) how can u call it good care when they recommend a basking spot of 95 degrees for a green tree frog and the cage they are in is at almost 90 degrees at all times? how can u say its good care when half the animals are parasitized and they dont treat them? and they DONT treat them for it either! all they do to quarrantine an animal is take it to a back room and put it in a horrible cage with a light and hope it gets better. no real treatment. i went into the quarrantine room and they had a lizard that was dying of malnourishment...you could tell the thing was loaded with parasites. no panacure or flagyle (however that stuffs spelled) all they can do is reccoment you to a vet. at least they do that. by the way, if you feed your crickets fresh friuts and veggies and hi-pro fish food, they will be healthy for your animals (guttloaded) i recommend u do that for your animals rachel. you will see a difference. no offense to you rachel, i just really hate petsmart. good luck and have fun with your job! be careful what you say to people around other employees... i got canned for telling someone how to properly take care of their red eared slider that was dying from metabolic bone disease. take care
 
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josh

Guest
wow, thats wierd.... when i posted the above message, it says i misspelled 'recommend' but when i was typing it, it was correct. why did it post it misspelled when it really wasnt??
 
K

kelly

Guest
There used to be a petsmart where I used to live and apart from the bunnies, rats and fish they usually sold they did snakes too. They were always under fed and one day one of their corn snakes escaped and was found sitting in the store entrance. When reported to the staff there they just shrugged and left it. Luckily this branch closed down not long after. After hearing about this though I wouldn't buy anything from petsmart if you paid me.
 
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jj

Guest
When I bought my gecko I went to petsmart first. They had only 3 tanks with a Satanic Leaf Tailed GEcko, an anole that looked like it was going to die and3 turtles in a small 15 gallon tank that had like 2 inches of water and no land. I go to petco and there is 3 aisles of herps. But I think there was a fat-tailed gecko that was dead. But overalll it was a better store. I bought my lizard at an independant store.

Winner: Petco (But petsmart still has good things for herps but not the herps)
 
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joseph

Guest
I think it all depends quite a bit on the manager of the particular store how well the employees do the job.

Has anyone by any chance seen the caresheets Petco puts out for reptiles etc.? I've looked at them but don't know enough on reptiles to nitpick them too much. I know that the ones I picked on fish looked ok but the tank sizes were a bit smaller than what most would reccomend. I know Petsmarts labels really shrink the maximum size on the large fish.
 
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