What About All the Animals Stuck in Pet Stores?

[ZoesMom]

I agree that MOST pet stores are bad ... But we cannot lump them all into that. My niece is the Manager of a small Pet store in Alabama. She runs her store differently. She takes the time and learns about each specie that the Owners have wanted to carry (bird and otherwise). And has refused to carry ones that she knows they would not be able to care for properly. I cannot believe that she is the only person out there like this.
With that said...the only pets I have ever bought from a pet store are fish and a Guinea pig when my granddaughter was small. Oh yeah, and I rescued a cat during adoption days one year. (shadow kitty-rip )

[Pajarita]

Oh, I am sure that there are lots of people who love animals and work in petstores but I don't think they last long in them if they carry live animals - at least, all the ones that I know of didn't because, eventually, the situation will come up when an animal is sick and the owners don't want to pay for treatment. I also don't know of a single store that feeds fresh food to the birds (or hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, ferrets, etc) on a daily basis.

[Trick or 'Tiel]

The store I go to feeds fresh foods, I see them in the bowls every time I go there. I've seen peas, apples, lettuce, and various other greens in the bowls there. Here's a comparison of a good versus bad petstore: there is one small independent petstore that I used to go to, but don't anymore because it doesn't care about the animals. The bad one keeps the poor birds in small cages and they never come out, they clip them anyway, and all the birds get are seeds, seeds, seeds. No fresh foods whatsoever. The birds have about two perches per cage, and maybe one or two toys. Once, I asked them how to convince birds to eat produce, but all they said was "we just feed them seeds here". When I asked to take a bird out, just to give it some interaction, they always said no. I never buy anything from this store anymore. The good petstore is also a small independent store, but MUCH better. The birds are taken out, are given fresh foods and pellets, and have multiple toys in their cages and natural wood branches.

[ParrotsForLife]

The pet store I go to all the birds outside in the Aviaries have lots of natural branches to perch on and they have foragers and of course access to sunlight, The large parrots indoors belong to the owner so they go back into his house when the store closes which is just next door and they are all fed fresh food daily and customers always interact with them by just chatting and some allow head scratches.

[liz]

There was a pet store in NC that let the birds out all at once every morning. They basically stayed near their own cages but could fly the store and go back. They were all socialized to the point that if you walked by and the bird like you he would just jump on your shoulder.
One little parrot claimed me as his ride around the store. I got really attached to him but could not care for or afford him at that time. I told a sales clerk that someone should be staying near the door that it would be so easy to just walk out with the bird. She took the bird from me as if I was saying I was going to take it.
After that they only let them loose when the store was closed. They would let you hold one if you were considering it.

[Pajarita]

I hope from the bottom of my heart that you are right and that petstores, same as pet owners, are, indeed, beginning to change the way they care for birds! It's always a few that start and slowly but surely, they all end up changing so it might be that we are going through a 'transition' in the way we do things. We can only hope!

[Trick or 'Tiel]

A petstore that doesn't clip and lets the birds out to fly? That's great!