Other Turtle Discussion :: Defending Pet Store Clerks/Owners

[sneakyburrito]

i work at petco as a reptile specialist. people come in my store asking if we have sliders all the time. fortunately, it is illegal to sell turtles in the city that my store is located in. I just simply tell the people that turtles need this and that, some people get scared and forget about the idea of getting a turtle, others take the time to listen and learn from me, and ofcourse there are some who refuse to listen to me because they were told at the vendor that turtles dont need large amounts of water and space etc.. but for every person who has asked me, i have always recommended that they check out this site for further info. I tell everyone who are interested in aquatic turtles that you guys are the real deal and will answer any further questions aside from the ones that i answer for them. but in the end, i do agree, alot of petco/petsmart "reptile" specialists dont know their animals at all. I actually walked into another local petco the other day and went to the reptile area and talked to their "specialist". i asked questions about all their reptiles they had in stock but very few correct answers. I played it off like everything was ok since i didnt wanna seem like a jerk. I was about to leave the store and i had the chance to catch up with the store manager. i explained to him that their reptile specialist should go back and read his books. the next day i came back, and found that they fired the kid.

[Safdar]

I pray to God that there should be more people like you
In this World

[octpusgirl8]

Seriously. Think of all the wasted money and dissapointed turtles because of crappy advice given by pet store employees!

[SpotsMama]

Wow!

Sneaky, I'm a frequent patron of both Petsmart and Petco in my town and they both have a mixture of people who are excellent and really know their stuff and people who don't and shouldn't be giving advice. I'm sure it's very hard to keep knowledgable people on the staff of a big retail chain who have in-depth (or even shallow!) knowledge of a subject as complex as retile keeping.

What would really help is if the stores had good, comprehensive care sheets for the animals they sell. Usually there aren't any care sheets. When there are, the ones I've seen for sliders have been extremely poor. I've bought books too at Petco and Petsmart on turtle keeping and they've been awful. It suprises me that the big stores don't provide good care sheets - seems like that would be so easy to do.

You know, I just realized that although neither Petco nor Petsmart sells aquatic turtles, I've seen care sheets for them in the stores. I suppose that's because both sell supplies for aquatic turtles. Obviously, a lot of their customers have them.

Anyway, it's wonderful for a customer to come across somebody such as yourself who knows what they are doing.

[xsavingsaturdayx]

You know, I just realized that although neither Petco nor Petsmart sells aquatic turtles, I've seen care sheets for them in the stores. I suppose that's because both sell supplies for aquatic turtles. Obviously, a lot of their customers have them.

Do you mean just in texas? Because the petsmarts and petcos here have everything from african sidenecks, map turtles, cooters, painteds, and even on rare occasions some morph versions of RES..though they are poorly cared for

I actually walked into another local petco the other day and went to the reptile area and talked to their "specialist". i asked questions about all their reptiles they had in stock but very few correct answers. I played it off like everything was ok since i didnt wanna seem like a jerk. I was about to leave the store and i had the chance to catch up with the store manager. i explained to him that their reptile specialist should go back and read his books. the next day i came back, and found that they fired the kid.

I am glad that you got that idiot fired, and i am glad to see that someone like you is out there..but it's very unfortunate that there arent more people like you...

And as for the books on taking care of sliders..actually I found them to be pretty okay..they just dont go 'too' in depth about things. And as for the caresheets, i've looked into the ones that petsmart hands out..they are correct for their sliders (again they dont go in depth about certain things), but incorrect for their african sidenecks. I've never checked petcos caresheets..

[SpotsMama]

Xsavingsaturdayx, a Petco employee told me it was illegal to sell sliders in Texas. I don't think that's true, I think what he had heard about was the 4" rule, which is federal, but at any rate, neither of them around here sells aquatic turtles, though I've seen a few tortoises at each store.

I don't remember what books I got, but when I first got Spot I bought about 3 different books, looking for something to tell me what to do. I picked up any care sheet I could find. The main complaint was that none of them provided enough detail to be of much use. They would say (this is an example), the turtle needs UVB but then they didn't mention about the different bulbs and that for UVB you have to get one that says UVB, so for years I used an "all spectrum" type bulb and thought I was doing fine. The books would say "the turtle needs to bask" but wouldn't say how much or what you have to do to motivate it to bask, so I didn't do anything in particular and, sure enough, he didn't bask. I didn't know how to get him to bask. I never saw one single thing about the importance of the turtle drying out completely at frequent intervals until I found out about it on this site - not even the vets I saw said anything, even though it was obvious Spot had shell problems. I found out about cuttlebone on the internet. I never saw or heard anything about the dangers of over feeding. Nothing I read and none of the people in the pet stores ever mentioned the huge value of a good turtle forum though that's the very best place to get help. There were just so many essential things that I didn't know even though I was trying to find out it's a miracle Spot survived at all. Now that I've finally got some good information, I've been taking better care and Spot is like a new turtle - all beautiful and friendly. You are very fortunate to have come across this site when your turtles were still little.

[xsavingsaturdayx]

You are very fortunate to have come across this site when your turtles were still little.

Who? Me? Yeah I know, everything I was told before I came here was false. Thankfully though, i learned to take care of them properly thanks to this site.

Poor spot..but keep in mind it wasnt your fault, you are very dedicated to him and know quite a lot. RES are very hardy, it takes more than a few years without UVB, incorrect diet, to get them to die..You are doing a good job taking care of him and hopefully your care will reverse all the damage done.

[DavidY]

Yay SneakyBurrito! Keep up the good work!

[untsmurf]

I've seen RES in my petsmart a few times, but they are almost full grown and their habitat is bigger that I would expect, but still really crappy. I mean they feed them on the dock for crying out loud. And these full grown turtles never have more than a few inches of water. My petco however has what looks like a 100 gallon tank with about 7-8 female RES in it and a big pleco. One of the turts looked like it had an eye infection and almost all of their shells looked a little weird. And I don't think they were using UV light (there was only one lamp).

And I went to this store called petland here in lewisville, to show my bf what a crappy store it was and to never shop there, and all their tanks were super overpriced their animals weren't well cared for, and their animals in their fuzzy animal sections were being tortured by packs of little children trying to grab them (the tanks are open to the public). I even heard one girl (that was a little too dumb and slutty for my taste) was trying to ask this man (she didn't know) if they could pay him to buy her a hermit crab because she wasn't 18 yet. I wanted to hit her. The worst part was, I was back in the back checking out their reptile supplies (because I'm pricing for when I furnish my boaphile) and this guy starts telling me how RTB's need UVB light to digest food (which I was told by everyone that that's not true because they are nocturnal) and that he knows this because of some show in Dallas where, get this, Bob Barker's Boa's were there and he said they die without UVB light. Apparently Bob Barker is the nation's best, most popular boa breeder. So I went home and googled it, on the off chance that I fell of the earth and missed this little tidbit of information, and to my surprise (not) there is no Bob Barker Boa company. I wanted to hit that guy too... It's amazing what people come up with.

[DavidY]

Ha ha that was a whopper! Boas live in the jungle below the dense rain forest canopy where they get very little direct sunlight. They get pretty much everything they need from their whole animal prey.

The PetCo near me actually has a pretty decent aquatic turtle setup. It's good sized like 4 or 5 ft long by 2ft wide by 2ft high and it has a really cool molded plastic thing that's shaped like a giant tree root along the back wall that has branches that descend into the water. So the turtles can climb up and bask on it and the can swim through the caves that are formed under it. There's a section of it like a trunk that goes all the way to the bottom of the tank and has openings for inlet and outlet. I think that's where the filtration is hidden. The rest of the tank is bare bottom and the water is always very clean. Most of their turtles look healthy although once in a while they get one in that looks a little sick, probably came that way from the breeder. But they are all over 4 inches. I've been pretty satisified with their animal setups in general. They're always cleaned on a regular basis, the animals all look well fed for the most part. They're reptiles and amphibians always seem to be decent. They have a good selection of aquatic plants as well as live feeders. The only problem is waiting a long time to get help and the fact that they sell some inappropriate supplies like "Turtle Gravel". I've heard some of their employees give some really bad advice before but I've also had a few that seemed to know the basics or were very eager to learn.

I have another favorite pet store about a half hour drive away that's huge and has all kinds of pets with pretty knowledgeable staff. They have an expert to manage each section and they each seem to know their stuff pretty well. They have several really nice pond setups with koi and aquatic turtles in them (no turtles in tanks at all). And they sell everything you need to set one up properly. Their reptile section is really nice with a good variety and clean natural looking habitats. They breed their own exotic birds there too and hand raise the babies. The freshwater fish and plant section is huge and well cared for, plus, my other favorite section next to the reptiles, a huge saltwater reef section with a large variety of fish, corals, invertebrates, and a huge basin (over 1000gals) full of fresh live rock! That's where I bring all my propagated corals in for trade.

[untsmurf]

Ha ha that was a whopper! Boas live in the jungle below the dense rain forest canopy where they get very little direct sunlight. They get pretty much everything they need from their whole animal prey.

See that's what I thought too!! He said they need it to digest their food and MAKE CALCIUM. I kept saying no they don't, they're nocturnal jungle animals, they get what the need from their food. And that's why you give them rats instead of mice. And he said that every snake they sell that goes to a home without UVB dies. Every single one. Because they keep track of that kind of stuff. And the whole Bob Barker thing, I mean come on!

[marisa]

Good for you, sneakyburrito.

[Tenodera]

this guy starts telling me how RTB's need UVB light to digest food (which I was told by everyone that that's not true because they are nocturnal) and that he knows this because of some show in Dallas where, get this, Bob Barker's Boa's were there and he said they die without UVB light. Apparently Bob Barker is the nation's best, most popular boa breeder. So I went home and googled it, on the off chance that I fell of the earth and missed this little tidbit of information, and to my surprise (not) there is no Bob Barker Boa company. I wanted to hit that guy too... It's amazing what people come up with.

Well he thought he was trying your boa, wasn't he? He must have been misinformed.

[ptcake]

Wow! Others have found good pet stores! I knew I wasn't alone. Sure, some employees don't know about RES, but some DO know and it's up to us as RES lovers to FIND those who do know and to seek out our own information. Sometimes incorrect information is given, but it rarely destroys our RES...as someone mentioned, they are hardy and if we watch them carefully and try different methods of care, offer a variety of foods, etc., our turtles will survive!