Other Turtle Discussion :: you should need a permit to own a turtle!!! seriously!!!

[pumpkinsherbet]

i agree, the warm blooded pets that run around the neighbourhood are the more abused animals. simply because little psychos can get their hands on them a good deal more easily than others.

i think it's going a bit overboard to call that abuse, though. abuse is when you intentionally inflict harm on someone/something. it seems to me this lady was simply uneducated. she was probably asking you to educate her in her own roundabout way, perhaps a little embarassed? otherwise she would've just asked for a 2½ gallon tank and not specified the reason.

i get a lot of idiots in my store. people who are licensed hair stylists and they ask stupid questions like what does neutral base mean? hello! that's the first thing you learned in school, how did you manage to pass state board and not know the most basic thing?!?! it's annoying, but it is our duty to educate them, even when we feel they should already be.

[sneakyburrito]

pardon me for playing devil's advocate, but not everyone has the internet, thus the whole world at their finger tips, and not everyone is given an adequate care sheet. a lot of people are told that turtles are low-maintenance inexpensive pets, they stay small, etc. and they don't have the proper resources to do the full research.

it is, however, your duty as the pet store to employee to help them find easier and more readily available research material, and let them know that what they are looking for is inadequate, and show them what it is they need.

so basically you're annoyed at them because they are ignorant, so educate them.

I totally agree with you PumpkinSherbet, Littlest_Weasley, your job for working at a petstore is to help pet owners making sure they walk out of your store with the right things that makes their pets live a long and happy life. so like what Pumkin said, you are annoyed because of a new turtle owner's ignorance. Now if you had come on here to rnt about how you walked into a pet store and you saw that they had turtles living in that 1/4 gallon container, then you would have every right to be annoyed about turtle care.

[GPRenegade]

I agree...

I think a more realistic step would be giving pet stores the responsibility for proper turtle care. Every time I go to Pet's mart I visit a pair of 7 inch RES in what looks like a 10 gallon tank (Completely contrary to the care sheet THEY gave me)... Pet store employees need to educate themselves and pass it on to customers. If the customer wants to buy a small tank and no supplies tell them flat out - IT WONT LAST THE NIGHT.