Once upon a time when I was in college, my roommate and I wanted a pet. Very badly. We were silly girls, wishing for such a thing when we were living in the dorms and pets were strictly prohibited. But we were both animal lovers and moving from our homes with pets to a dorm with no pets was hard on us. So we talked about it and thought it over. And decided we could sneak one and no one would be the wiser.
One snowy night we decided to hop on a bus and ride it over to the Lennox area - neither of us had our cars on campus and it was too cold to walk so our only option was the bus. We rode it over to Petco, the only pet store within our reach at the time. We were ready to impulse-buy an animal.
We had all intentions of buying a hamster. That would be small and inconspicuous and stay in a cage. Did I mention that we had two other roommates that we had to hide the animal from? We shared a room, so we were going to keep our pet only in our room. It had to be an animal OK with small spaces. I wanted a hamster, but when we got to the store my roommate fell in love with the rabbits. Yes, they were ridiculously cute, but I wasn't sure that would be our best option. But my roommate had already fallen in love with them, and their rabbit selection was pretty good. They hardly had any hamsters. I wanted a golden one and that night they didn't have any. They only had like two gray ones and a bunch of guinea pigs, which we didn't want. So we picked this little gray bunny. He was quite cute, and he wasn't very big. So my roommate bought the bunny for about $40. The sales associates talked to us about him a little bit, and told us that he really loved their hay. So I bought a big bag of that, some chewing sticks, pellet food and a water bottle. Then we found him a cheap cage at Target. I paid about $40 in all. The cages at Petco were so expensive! They also gave us a little info sheet on caring for a rabbit, which we knew nothing about, so we were grateful for any information.
We were carrying this poor rabbit around in a little cardboard box. We got on the bus trying to hide it because I'm sure rabbits are frowned upon on buses. We were so afraid the thing was going to have a heart attack. But we made it home and set up his cage and he was all scared so we fed him and he chowed down on his hay. He seemed happy enough after that. We made sure he had everything he needed and gave him time to adjust to his new home.
Man, was this rabbit crazy! I'm not sure if he was just scared from the move from the store or what, but he was not friendly. But as the year went on he never got any better. We'd take him out and pet him, but he'd try to bite us if we picked him up. He'd get so mad and dodge at us if we took him out to clean his cage, which we did regularly. We always made sure he was fed and gave him other foods on the rabbit care sheet - yogurt, lettuce, etc. He should have been happy. I didn't know until then that rabbits growled. He growled at us all the time. And he was always chewing at his cage to escape and he would sometimes - then chew everything up he could reach. And poo everywhere. He was just a bad bunny! But we'd still love him and pet him and he'd relax when we laid him on his back and pet his tummy.
So maybe it's not Petco's fault at all that our bunny was so neurotic. But I'm pretty sure we didn't do anything wrong. We took care of him, never hurt him or yelled at him and gave him anything he needed. He was mean since day one. So I have to wonder - did they give him proper care from the start? I've always heard that rabbits were so even tempered, and ours was so not. I worried that maybe he wasn't treated well and he became mean. But the people at the store who we talked to seemed really great and even knew that this bunny liked his hay more than anything. The girl we talked to seemed so great with him, and maybe even a little sad to see him go. But sometimes you do hear bad things about animal treatment in pet stores. At least our bunny was very healthy and active. He was not at all sluggish or ill, just feisty as hell. But after such a crazy experience, I'm not sure that I'll buy another animal from any pet store. Especially when there are so many that need good homes from shelters. But this was the only store we could get to from campus, so if you're a student and need an animal, I guess this is the place to go, but maybe think a little harder about your decision.
As far as the store goes, it was pretty nice and it did have everything we needed for our bunny. It was a great place to stock up on all his supplies. But it wasn't good when we had to go to Target to get the cage. They cost way more than we had at Petco, and we had to do something quick for his home.
In the end, we did get away with having a pet. We showed the bunny to our friends, but our RA never found out and it didn't hurt anything in the end. And it was fun to have an animal around, even though he was psycho. But we loved him anyway! read more