Durel's Pet Store

[Sary]

Oy vey.

Now, I am not one of those people that terribly blasts all pet stores as a whole for not taking care of their animals and maltreating them and whatnot...

and infact, this one isn't neccessarily doing so..kind've...

I went to Durel's yesterday evening. We have two of them in Lafayette, and they are my favorite pet store. There pets are relatively well-taken-care-of, (atleast as compared to my other two...)

Well, they had just gotten in four new hedgehogs...

I checked them all out. You could tell they were just in because they were all very clean, and quite friendly, and willing to be handled. Usually, after about a week or two in solitary, they huff up far too much, and are unappealing to possible hedgie-owners, etc..

Well, I noticed a box of "Hedgehog Advanded Diet and Nutrition" food next to the cage...

I had been wanting to get them to change their food for a while, but I knew the hedgies had been rejecting the hedgehog crap and they had to feed them cat food...

So I went get the manager, and I said something along the lines of, "might I persuade you into changing the food you are feeding your hedgehogs?"

I was attempting to be as nice as possible, but yeah.. I went on to tell him how bad the food he was feeding them.. the qualifications for a good, healthy food to feed your hedgehog.. reccomended some name brands.. somewhere in there, though, he interrupted me, and said

"You got this information off of the internet, didnt you?" and without waiting for me to respond, continued, "You have to understand there is a lot of incorrect information out there, you know you can post ANYTHING on the internet and people will just believe whatever they want"

I told him that I was in contact with many (many) breeders and otherwise hedgie-experienced people, and that I was not stating this because it was somethign I had read online and decided to inform him, that I knew this..etc.

well, he didn't change the food, to make an extremely long story short, and was very angry by the time I let him be. He treated me like a kid, and not an intelligent one, and I was very.. huffy ... lol

He also tried to prove to me that the food he was feeding them was good. "How much fat and protein should they have? Oh, that much? Well this has 30% proten and 9% fat!"

My rebuttle: "*picks up the box* Yes, but listen to your first five ingredients.. go ahead and try to find me a single meat in here:"

He ignored as much... Frankly, this depresses me. I thought durel's would be open minded, atleast more so than the other pet stores in the area...

Grah! So I felt the need to rant a little bit. FOUR HEDGEHOGS in this one tiny little bity cage! Thankfully, they were all female.. but they were (literally) piled ontop of each other. The cage is about twice the size of a shoebox, and a tiny bit wider...

No hidey place, ofCOURSE no wheel.. I mentioned this to him, as well. They use some sort of pellet bedding that i've never seen or heard of before..

I'm done. anyone want to call and yell at them for me? I could find the phone number..

[taco]

:( poor hedgies. sure id call and yell at them, except that might be a little weird. *hi, ive never even heard of your store much less been there, and im calling to yell at you for not treating your hedgies very well, and not being open min.... (petstore hangs up.)* lol. ya it seems the majority of petstores dont care about the animals and just want money... its really sad. they wont even take advise. :( the pet store that i used to live by was kind of like that only they at least fed their hedgies an alright quality cat food and had a hide box, but no wheel and were in a 10 gallon critter cage. and there were four hedgies and i think 2 were boys. and finally once they sold all but one they threw in a cat ball. :|

[Sary]

O.o wow

you know the worst part about this guy?

He started preaching to me about how there is always an ideal situation but that doesn't mean that the animal can't live in a situation otherwise. He told me about how his cat lived for 17 years on Science Diet, and was healthy and fine.. which wasnt bad. But then he told me how this guy had given him a $400 fish because the guy couldn't take care of it, it had very strict diet requirements and the guy felt that someone else would be able to take better care of it..

and what does this guy do? HE says that he feeds the fish the same as all of the other fish, and that fish is still alive.

Gah! I wanted to hit him! Poor fish! Humans have diet requirements.. I mean, we can live off of grass but that doesn't mean that our quality of life will be good...

Sigh.

[Super Chin]

That isn't right, but there isn't to much you can do about it. Maybe if you talked with a few of the employees and then they talked to the manager, or at least convinced him to look online and find out what is really best...

[taco]

ya its not about keeping it alive its about providing a happy, healthy, good life for the animal. and like you said sary we can live off of grass, but if we do we wont be healthy and then i doubt we would be happy. and that guy who gave him the fish was really wrong, even if he couldnt take care of the fish's diet i bet he was doing a better job then this guy..... i agree with superchin you should diffenetly talk to the employees and se if they can or will do anything.

[hedgewood]

one of my close friends works in a pet store in my hometown. that is actually where i bought hedgewood from, however, they are constantly getting in different and exotic pets with no idea of how to properly care for them. my friend is trying to slowly educate them and do what is best for the pets without loosing her job. when i got hedgewood from there (before my friend worked there), she was in a small hampster cage with her two brothers, they had no hidey hut, no wheel, just a dish of water and dish of pretty pet food......ugh. at the time of purchase, i was not the most knowledgable of hedgehogs, and had asked a few questions. this was there response
"hedgehogs live for 10-20 years"
"do not ever bath them"
"dont feed them anything except for their food"
"they do not eat fruits or veggies...its not good for them"
they were absolutely clueless, it a good thing i did my own research and hedgewood has alot more know that the would have ever provided for her. considering she came from a pet store like that, she is absolutely the sweetest hedgehog in the world. so affectionate......she never balls up and rarely huffs.
i love my little snedgie wedgie.....

[Ldy_Icedragon]

I've found that a lot at pet stores. Employees often seem to know so little about the exotic animals that come in. In Bill's (a local pet shop) they don't seperate the Egyptian Spiny Mice males. They just put them all in the same cage even when they're not litter mates. Even when they fight and bite off each other's tails they leave them together!! I hope you can get through to them somehow Sary! I only wish there was something that could be done on an legal basis about pet shops that aren't knowledgeable about their stock.

~Danielle

[Lisa]

That is one thing about petstores........they are not for the poor animals............they are there for the money.........it is sad that the poor helpless animals have to live that way.......but it happens everywhere.........and all we can do is fuss adn such at them and maybe even report for certain things.........but to them they dont care, "they think they know everything"..........poor little girls..........maybe they will stick him good "IF" he ever gets close to them..LOLOL.........

[barton]

my hedgie came from a bad pet store too, he was in a little cage ...well atleast he had a box to hide in but no wheel nothing else and he was kept in a small room at the back where all the large lound birds are... it was defening. and i have had him for two years now but he has never quite been completely friendly i dont know if it is temperment or if the store had something to do with it.