Please, please do not buy animals from this Petco.
If you have time, read this long story of mine to read about my experience.
If you don't, scroll to the end where I summarize it.
I've been there twice this week, and somehow the second visit was worse than the first.
The first visit began somewhat pleasantly. I was greeted and asked if I needed help. The reptiles in the front appeared clean as did the aquariums to the side. One dead fish in the pond they keep. Understandable. These things happen.
Then I went to the rodent section. Their cages appeared to be neglected. It's visibly apparent that they haven't been cleaned properly in at least a few days. There are droppings everywhere. In one of the cages, I believe it was for one of the guinea pigs, the droppings covered the bottom of the wheel. The bedding in most of the cages had been shifted so that the glass bottom of the tanks was uncovered in places. I noticed in the mouse cage, the water had been dripping. It had completely soaked half of the bedding on the bottom of the cage, and with the size of their cage, this had been going on for a while. I told one of the workers there and the response: "Oh, I'll have to change that again." Great, so you already knew this was a problem, yet you let it happen for this long. After mentioning this issue, this worker that previously greeted me changed his attitude and acted as if my presence was a burden.
My goal this day was to come in to get a mouse, and against my better judgment I had already gotten attached to a particular one. So I told this employee that I was interested in buying her. He picked her up by the length of her tail (any google search will tell you not to do this as it can harm the mouse) and put her in the box. Unlike Petsmart, Petco does not have you sign anything when purchasing an animal, nor do they confirm that you are over eighteen. This takes away one of the safeguards for the animals; anyone who has four bucks can just come in and get a mouse.
Fast forward a couple days, and I've decided to clean my mouse's cage. When I took her out, I noticed a brown bug disappear into her fur. I'm not an expert, but I think it is lice. Petco is the closest shop to me, so I've decided I'll make another short trip there to buy the lice spray they hold for small rodents.
The rodent cages, at first, look a little better than before. There are less droppings. The guinea pig cage has less of them, too, but for some reason the wheel that was there previously is no longer in the cage. The dripping water bottle has also been fixed. Then I looked at the cages more closely. The mouse dishes have crusted, dried on droppings. The wheel in one of the mouse cages has dried droppings as well. It is clear that they only spot cleaned and haven't done any deep cleaning or scrubbing in a very long time. Upon further inspection, some mice and rats have excrement on their fur and caked onto their toes.
The item I was looking for was found on the bottom shelf. It was completely dusty (I'm talking a month's collection of dust), and all the other items on the bottom shelf in this area had the same issue. Apparently, Petco is not only neglecting their rodents' cages, they also don't practice general cleaning habits either.
At this point, I was about to leave with my lice treatment and a couple other items, but I looked at the rodent cages one last time. A couple of the hamsters had begun fighting. My friend came back after finding a worker in one of the office rooms, and we showed her the one who was starting the fights. He had a bleeding cheek and another hamster had blood in his fur. The worker brought out a box as if she was going to take him out then. Finally, we're headed to the register. Then we noticed this worker had taken the role of cashier. One more look at the hamsters' cage, and the hamster had not been removed. The employee must have seen us go back though, because now she had decided to come over and remove the hamster.
I put my items back and left the store.
Long story short: Petco lost my sale of over $20 in items. Multiple employees acted as if I was burdening them when I brought a problem to their attention. They don't give proper care to their animals which seem to just be simply more products for them to sell.
If you must purchase a pet from a large-scale pet store, choose the Petsmart on McHenry instead. Their cages are better kept, and they have 3 mice in a cage instead of 10. They also have more measures to ensure that buyers know what they're doing when they buy an animal, and they have easily accessible pamphlets for each animal.
Petco also apparently doesn't have comment cards. I say, good thinking Petco. read more