Habitat - Indoor :: Why would the guy from Petco....

[MamaLou]

Well thank you, I try to be as helpful to turtle parents as I can. Petco is just bad news. They just happened to open up a new store across the street from my petsmart, and we get tons of customers from there every day already with complaints about their service and associates and lack of knowledge on turtles and everything else. Our turtle kit doesnt come with gravel, and it is very approptiate for starter turtle tanks.

[DavidY]

Yay! One of our own ranks has infiltrated one of the enemy's base camps! Continue to subvert any malicious lies being spread by the unbelievers and bravely aid those poor refugees who are fortunate enough to escape the evil clutches of the Petco dominion!

It's really good to see someone intelligent and caring in there working with the animals and helping new owners to understand their new pets correctly. Keep up the great work!

[MamaLou]

Thanks! I have learned alot from this forum, and tons of Googling. Too bad petco people cant do the same.

[SpotsMama]

I'm sure a lot of the people who work at petco and other pet stores are nice people who really love animals. It's just that they are so often ill informed. I blame the companies for this. It's their responsibility to ensure that their people are capable of providing the service and info that's expected of them.

Once in a while, though, you find a really good person at one of the big chains. There's a young woman who works in the fish section of our local store that's totally dedicated and really seems to know what she's doing. I've been very impressed with her.

[MamaLou]

After now working at Petsmart I find that most of the people are only informed as they choose to be. Luckily the team that I work with does care about the pets we are selling and the concern for the pets when the customers come in with questions. But as with any place you have the people that are only there for their check. I personally come home after work and inform myself on anything I did not know about. Questions customers ask that I don't know the answer to I refer them to someone in the store that may know and if that doesn't work I try and help them and then come home that night and look up whatever animal was in question and educate myself on it.

As far as the turtles go 90% of the people that work in pet stores do not know what to tell anyone. That is one reason I sought out working there because I knew that summer was coming up and kids and parents were going to start coming in with loads and loads of questions about the tirtles they just bought at the beach. So now all the customers who come in the staff now refers them to me. Which pleases me because I can tell them all they need to know to help with the life of their turtle. They are either completely excited about their upcoming adventure with their turtle or completely shocked with all that is going to go into their new pet.

MamaLou

[marisa]

I really think it depends on who Petsmart and Petco hire as far as how good the help will be. I occasionally visit both (here, where there is one, the other is not located far away)---they carry somewhat different products, and the prices for a product they both carry can vary. I've actually found the staff at Petco to be more amendable to suggestions than at Petsmart, and have had Petco staff ask me what I would do in particular instances.

I always gave the Petsmart here credit for knowing they can't care for turtles/tortoises (what I was once told) and never saw any being sold...until last week, when a Russian tortoise (if I remember correctly) magically appeared in one of their displays.

[MamaLou]

marisa,

Very true all just depends on the store and who they hire to work for them. Just happy to people able to help people with their questions on how to care for turtles. Not everyone thinks to come online and look for things like this. This forum is a good one for sure.

Mamalou