Human Cruelty - How SA pet shops kill reptiles

[Trentonskeeper]

I watched a few of your clips on this chap and I cried through them all, so glad you fought to save him and tried to ease his suffering and save him. While he could not say Thank You I am sure he was grateful that someone cared enough to help him. I will not touch that store, thank you for naming and shaming them.

[ColinWa]

Urucone, while the topics heading may be unfair, the content reflects the author’s experience. As a pet shop you should be required to make sure the animals you sell are in good condition, would you buy a vehicle from me if I said, we get in lots of cars and I can’t be responsible for the quality? Definitely not! Why are the pet stores buying animals from people who just want to get rid of them? Are they looking for deals, perhaps? If I run a business, I would make sure I had top quality stock to make sure my customers are happy; at the end of the day happy customers mean successful businesses. Therefore your argument about pet stores being more likely to get sick animals in holds no water. As a pet shop owner, you would assume a passion for animals as a perquisite; feelings will never be “kept aside”. How does the NSPCA go overboard when requiring you to provide your animals with medical attention, I would think that would be the natural thing to do?

I agree with Michael here, keeping lots of animals is no excuse for not looking after them. Even if they got it whilst it was sick, they of all people should know how to take care of a sickly animal and not make it suffer even more. Any person that doesn't know about these animals can just walk in there and see that, and then do the exact same thing at home and think it's right to do that. Petshops set the standard for a lot of people who don't know any better, and in the end just more animals suffer. Even spoke to a guy the other day who said someone came to him and asked why his snake wouldn't eat KFC as some pet shop told him they will take it because they eat chicken. This is the example these people are setting.

[Lillypod]

I've been to a numerous pet shops in Durban over the past few months, visiting each one just about every time I go through. I cannot express how sad I am of the condition of some of the animals I have seen there, while not all pet shops fall under this. I have fallen into a trap many times, buying animals because I feel sorry for them, this actually creates more problems. Each time I fight to help them survive and 60% of the time I lose the fight. This hurts me and those around me and helps the pet shop, knowing people would buy animals even if they are sick is just creating the problem of pet shops caring less. This may even be added to when buying from breeders. I can understand when cages are dirty at times, animals are messy, but they have no right trying to sell sick and neglected animals. I always do my best to keep my animals as healthy as possible and feed the right foods and provide them with their needs so they can build up an immunity, why can't pet shops do the same? I probably have more animals that most pet shops if you are willing to count my mice, rats and multimammate mice. I also have minimal income, so they have no excuse there as well. I just feel that if I can keep my animals as healthy as possible and feed the right food as well as educate people about the CORRECT way of taking care of animals, why is it so hard for petshops.

[Gwapo]

So guys use the one power we all have - cash!!! This particular store has been discussed previously. Stop buying from them!!! Is that such a difficult concept? There are at least two petshops that keep their stores clean and their animals in excellent condition close to the one mentioned....Suburban Pets in Bonaero Park and Reptile Gallery in Birchleigh. This type of conversation is just giving more ammunition to the SPCA and others that want to ban the keeping of exotic pets in general.

[Urucone]

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10
Nope, did't work

Please stick with the petshop's name and stop reffering to pet shops and these people, not all are bad.
Thanks

[snakes n more]

To all parties involved (especially to wildheart)

We unfortunately only found out about this post yesterday. With regards to the incident of animal cruelty especially the poor bearded dragon. We at SNAKESnMORE have seen your post and viewed the video of the bearded dragon concerned. We at SNAKESnMORE would firstly like to apologize for the misconduct of one of our previous employees. The staff member was dismissed. We are highly ashamed of our previous staff member’s actions and total disregard to the well being of our exotic animals. We at SNAKESnMORE have a passion for animals in general with reptiles and other exotics having a soft spot in our hearts. We at SNAKESnMORE have always had high standards yet an incompetent staff member has unfortunately dragged our name through the mud. We were contacted from Denise who works for the S.P.C.A out of shock as we have always had a good reputation with them. After discussing and explaining the situation in a meeting she understood the situation with regards to the bearded dragon and other reptiles mentioned. The bearded dragon was brought in with MBD (Metabolic Bone Disease) by someone who did not want the bearded dragon anymore. We took the bearded dragon into our care with good intentions of trying to give the bearded dragon a better life. The bearded dragon was not for sale because of its state. We at SNAKESnMORE have always reached out to help customers with any problems that they may encounter e.g. problem shedding, eye caps stuck on snakes, sending sick animals to a reptile vet to seek attention, giving sound advice etc. Yet again we would like to apologize to everyone who has watched the video and commented on the topic.

Regards
SNAKESnMORE

[Rexi]

I know this post is an old post, but its something that I have seen with my own eyes over the last couple of months. I have been to numerous pet shops over the past couple of months and I must say that it breaks my heart!!!!! MOST pet shops don't have the proper lighting in their cages for these Bearded dragons. Including some well known, Franchise pet shops. It is the responsibility of the pet shop to train their employees in the appropriate manner so that they have the knowledge to look after these animals. These dragons need 10.0 UVB, or even a POWERSUN or SOLAR glo which gives out more uvb, and it is the responsibility of these pet shops to know this, before taking these animals on. I take my hat off to you WILDHEART. I think reptile owners everywhere can be proud of you and what you did for this beardie. I wish that more of us could march into a store and demand them to make improvements. I often feel that the SPCA should have stricter protocol. When a human kills another human, you go to jail, but when you kill/hurt an animal and get caught, you get a fine, your animals get taken away, you get a bit of community service? that's if the SPCA isn't soft soaped with excuses and believe them. Murder is murder. I think that if our SPCA were as strict as in some other countries, most of our pet shops would be closed, and with good reason.