AMAZING customer service, very friendly and knowledgeable staff (Tristen) and the store is very clean!
I ended up with a surprise kitten last night.. long story short, my 15 year old son rescued a kitten from a filthy home and asked me if we could keep her. She was very cute, and VERY little (has to be less than 8 weeks), she also was very dirty, completely covered in fleas, you could see them crawling all over her. Seeing as how we already have a cat, I was worried about bringing this little one home (with fleas too). We were not prepared to have a new furry baby added to our home (not to mention I am leaving on vacation tomorrow) but, I couldn't see returning her to an unsafe home and I'm a sucker for my kid and fur babies, so, we stopped by Mud Bay our way home with this little one.
Now, I must say, I have not been in this mud bay since it opened, though I have driven by it many many times on my way home. When we walked in with our new little fur baby we were greeted promptly by Tristen. She was friendly and attentive. We explained what we needed (which was, well, everything). Tristen listened to us and quickly started getting us the things we would need (even thinking about protecting the cat we already had at home with preventative flea meds). She even taught us how to appropriately introduce our adult male cat to our new kitten and made everything seem a little easier to handle than when we walked into the store.
Then, the worst thing happened, we were showing off our kitten and a worm crawled out of it. A WORM! I about died, my soft heart stopped feeling so soft and I started to panic, I can't deal with a surprise kitten with fleas and worms and leave on vacation two days later. I think Tristen read the panic in my eyes, she calmly told me how it was an easy fix and I didn't need to worry, she had the meds right there and then explained to me how to care for this kitten.
As a single mom of three boys, I just couldn't wrap my head around all this right now, not two days before vacation. I felt like maybe we needed to return the kitten. It just wasn't the right time for us. I said out loud, maybe we can take it back and pick it back up from the home it came from it once I come back from vacation, when we can give it the attention it needs. Tristen immediately said, no, please don't. If its not a safe home don't take it back there, we can find her a home if you don't want her. She also offered to pay for some of the items the kitten needed out of her own pocket if it was a cost issue. I explained it wasn't either of those things, I just couldn't imagine taking her home right now with all these issues to just leave her alone while I was gone. It just didn't seem fair to anyone.
Then Tristen did the MOST AMAZING thing. She offered to take the kitten and watch her for us until I got back on Monday. She offered to bathe her and flea comb her and give her worm medicine and watch her for seven days!!! I couldn't believe it. It made a really tough situation do-able. She was a complete stranger to us and offered to help us help this sweet little kitten (and its siblings if there will still some left). She said she worked for mud bay so that she could help people like us (and our animals).
Last night, when we checked in with one another she said it was an hour of flea bath work. She also said she was going to do a preventative treatment for our kitten for roundworm and tapeworm too. The kitten was not eating hard food and was not littler box trained (as the people we got her from said she was) and even more interesting, SHE was not actually a she. Yes, that's right, she was a HE. The people who gave him to my 15 year old son (without my permission) shouldn't have had kittens at all. To say I am grateful for Tristen, for walking into mud bay last night and having this all work out the way it has would be a huge understatement. I truly think that Tristen saved this kittens life.
Mud bay- to find (and employ) someone with a heart for and knowledge about animals like Tristen has is like finding a needle in a haystack. Employees like Tristen is what will make Mud bay my new go to animal store from here on out! read more