is he dieing?

[kannalia]

irrelivent.... HE DIED not long after I posted that
.. thanks for all your support though!
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ok, I got my baby corn on mothersday, cleo has eaten 2-3 pinkiessence then, regurtating the first one I ever fed her. turnes out it was to larg i think. any way, cleo has eaten and digested 2 pinkies.. cleo has been lethargic, hiding, lets me do what ever I want to her, today I stuck a pinky in with her..I thought maybe it was to larg, so I cut its head off, and then I sliced it in half when cleo wouldnt eat it that way either! I tried everything thus far, and she isnt active at all, just blah, no instinct to get away from me at all... please tell me she is ok, and not dieing! I love her! she looks rather skinny and dehydrated. what should I do????

[kannalia]

NEVER MIND HE DIED in my hand less then 5 min ago

guess he wasnt ment to survive, now what should I do with him, burry him? and now i am gonna look for a new love! yes, I loved my snake, as cleo lays dead on my lap, im am crying to all of you!

[brownie55]

I am sorry for your loss. It always hurts to lose a pet, and the little weak ones always tug at our hearts the strongest. Good luck to you.

Brownie

[kannalia]

Thanks ! I cant believe how sick I feel about this. I cried when I put the dirt over his small lifeless body. It looks like they are alive, but limp and non responsive, and no breating, I hated that !!! any way, thanks !

[norbert03]

rough. reading it made me cry now. you can certainly bury your pet, i've done that several times. it seems like you probably were given a snake that wasn't all that healthy to begin with. be picky with where you purchase your next snake...DON'T go to a petstore, especially PETCO...find a good, reliable breeder.

[kannalia]

FUNNY!!! thats where I went.. petco!~! those stupid mother F**kers!!! I am mad, and sad and just heart broken because they sold me a snake ( $59) BTW... and it was NOT healthy! I hate them!!!!!!!

on a side note... may the gods and godesses bless cleo, I hope you are in a better place, maybe can start over healthy!

I love you and will miss you my baby snake cleo!

[norbert03]

and tell them what happened. tell them the condition it was in when you bought, how long you had it, and ask them what they can do for you. the snake was NEGLECTED while in the petstore, you deserve either a refund or a replacement snake...i recommend a refund...then go find a breeder and get a new baby :) if you buy a fish at petco and it does you bring it back and get a new one...same should be with any pet you buy at that sh*thole because they all die in like a month. seriously...take action. you've probably had him about a month, right? most petstores will give you a refund if a pet dies this quickly. i'm sorry if i am giving you too much info at once, i know you're hurting. i just hope that you can get a new serpent friend soon, they are awesome. <hugs>

[Tracee]

How can they get away with that..? :mad:

[norbert03]

norbie, he seemed fine...a month later he had spots all over, i brought him to the store i bought him to have him examined and this girl who was helping me told me flat out that he was in a cage where a snake had a bad mite infestation and that he probably got it while still in the store...OK...WHY on earth would you tell me this? thank you for basically telling me that you failed to care for this animal prior to it coming home with me, you nutter!!! it's ridiculous, it's EVIIIIL. it turned out, thank goodness, that norbie didn't have mites at all, he just had a shed coming on. still...he probably was exposed at some point while in neglectful hands.

[kannalia]

Iv been calling petco all morning, and I cant get reptiles to answer, its like they know!

[jaws]

The same kind of thing happened to me. I had Satchmo for two or three months, and she was never a good eater (always ate right away, but regurged 1/3-1/2 of the time). She started getting lethargic just as you described once before, but before it was too bad I got her to eat.
The second time, I was waiting ten days because she'd just regurged. About two days into it she practically stopped moving so we took her out and held her to try to get a reaction out of her. She wouldn't eat even a pinky head. I called a vet and he said it was probably genetic; there was nothing I could do. Mom put a shallow dish of water in her cage, which she must have drunk. Still, she died that afternoon.

And yes, she was pet store bought.

I'm sorry you had to lose your snake this way. :( Try to find a snake from a respectable breeder, if you decide to get another. It has to be worth the overnight shipping or travel costs.

[norbert03]

as stomach churning as it may sound...bring the snake. show them, do you have a receipt? speak to management. i'm so sad for you i want to buy you a new snake just so you can avoid dealing with the BS they're bound to give you.

[Milleniumtat2]

Im sorry to hear of your loss, I have had some trouble dealing with petstores thus far, which is why I have pretty much quit dealing with them at all. I now breed my own mice (which is a good idea if you have several snakes like me) and get eveything I need from mail order catalogs (drs foster...)
I have lost one snake (my male snow that I bought when I had bought my female, and I have also purchased a snake (my first one) that was supposed to be a corn. Paid $65 for it, then turns out, its not even a corn, hes a Glossy Snake. But Fred is my baby, he was my first snake, and I will never get rid of him, even though those people at that store were ignorant. Which at the time, I can say I was too, didn't know anything about snakes, so when they told me it was a corn, I never secoind guessed them.

Sorry for your loss


Sorry this is so long, just had to vent.
:angry01:

[babbaloo99]

I am sorry for your loss. I always look at the snakes at petco and feel so sorry for them. I would speak directly with a manager. Then, for the refund, you could probably buy two new corns from one of the respectable breeders on this forum. Best of luck to you. It's inevitable anyways....having more than one :)

[kannalia]

I talked to a woman at petco, she is gonna have me talk to the manager in the morning. I found a couple people that have new hatchlings that I am intrested in. Thanks so much to all of you !!! I so bad want cleo back, but I cant, his cage is empty and getting cleaned, I wish he could have survived, but I guess it wasnt ment to be. I am laying into petco, wondering if I can get them to take responsability with the pets, to care for them the way they should be!and not to sell sick ones, the woman today said if she noticed a sick snake she moved it into isolation... give me a break! I found out most had some sort of mites from there as well... If anyone knows of some new snakes for sale, please let me know, i am on yahoo messenger all day, and aol as lostsister6

[Taceas]

I'm sorry for your loss. The loss of any pet is a tragedy, and sometimes when you have a pet that most people in society despise its hard to find the comfort you need. I hope you've found it here with us.

I also hope that you find a healthy snake that can grow old with you. A long and happy life should be the norm for any snake.

As for Petco, I've heard about the many disaster stories from there and thankfully am glad we don't have one in our area, only PetSmart's. I don't buy any reptile from large commercial pet stores, only smaller mom and pop operations or privately.

If you're planning on re-using the same setup that Cleo was in, I would suggest thoroughly cleaning it with a bleach solution just to make sure that whatever happened to Cleo cannot be passed on to your new snake. And that includes cleaning whatever cage furniture you had: hides, bowls, sticks, plants, etc.

Best of luck to you with your new baby. =)

[Jenn]

i'm so sorry for your loss!
the petco in my area had a lot of corn snakes, pythons, and many many other reptiles. Slowly, all their snakes disappeared and so are all the other reptiles. Also, all the other animals have flyers near them saying they are cared for by some other company, i forget the name. Any one know the reason for these changes? which i'm assuming can probably only be good, because by the sound of it, PetCo doesn't know how to care for any of their animals, not just snakes.

[Tracee]

:angry01: It's horrendous that they even have permission to sell animals they clearly don't care for. Anyone thought of starting a petition or something, to get this company shut down?

A similar place near where I used to live was shut down for not caring for reptiles, cats and dogs, fish etc..it was gone in a month.

[MegF.]

If I didn't have a full-time job, I would go to work there just to make sure the critters are properly cared for. That goes for some of the reptile stores I've been in as well. There's a lot of poorly run shops out there. My local pet store keeps the snakes in very clean condition, although they do have multiple snakes in one area. They seem to know a lot about them though, and do a pretty good job with them. I was there one afternoon getting mice when a young girl brought her sand boa hatchlings in to sell. They gave her a good price for them, and she had all their feed records on each. Kind of cute actually.

[spunky787]

Check this site out.....it's so sad but true. The PetCo located near me has some serious problems too with caring of their animals.

PetCo :( (www.petcosucks.com)

[Taceas]

Cute site. And sadly enough true in several instances.

However I tend to be leary of anything sponsored by Peta. They tend to inflate the issue with fraudulent information. I'm not saying that what Petco is doing isn't wrong by any means, it's just I tend to be a little hesitant when Peta is the sole source of information.

Like..."Picking mice up by their tails", whats wrong with that? I do this to all of my mice, but I don't do it hard enough to cause damage. I do so to avoid damage to my fingers. I gently lift, and set down quickly. Now if you reach in and grab 'em and swing them around, that's wrong. Or "freezing mouse pinks before feeding them to snakes". How else are you going to kill a thimble sized animal in a clean manner? I've heard suffocation doesn't work as they're tolerant smothering. And squishing them, too messy. And goodness forbid that we feed live pinks to baby snakes. How cruel and unusual. Better not tell the wild snakes that, they might go on a hunger strike until we build a McMouses where they offer only the finest frozen/thawed fare. Gimme a break.

But displaying obviously dead animals? That's sick. There was a dead leopard gecko at the local PetSmart. I notifed an employee and she gently reached in, grabbed him up, and said "Poor thing". And then thanked me for notifying her. I understand pet stores cannot control when an animal dies in all cases. But they should be on top of it to remove the body before it begins to decay or be cannibalized.

I've just made a point not to buy animals from large petstore chains. Anything I buy comes from a locally owned store with knowledgeable employees. Now don't get me wrong, I shop for pet food and other pet supplies at PetSmart because it's cheaper. But the last pet I bought from PetSmart, a dwarf hamster, had serious emotional problems and died after 3 weeks in my care.

I'm sure there are some good Petco's out there who have managers who care about animals. But I'll bet they're in the minority. We need more people who care more about the animals than the money involved.

[MegF.]

Well said Misty. You are right about PETA. We wouldn't even be allowed to have a dog if they had anything to say about it.

[spunky787]

Wow, sorry guys. I had no idea that Peta was so bad. I just heard of them recently. I aplogize. :)

[brownie55]

In their cable TV series Penn and Teller's Bull**** on Showtime the boys do a wonderful job of exposing PETA and the agenda the "animal rights activists" would like to put in place. If you can catch a rerun of the show it is worth the hour.

Brownie

[Krenna]

I did not really know :( He is a Rough Green snake.. However I don't see him eating so I am concerned.

It was after getting him however I did start reading on snakes and learning about corns and I am getting a new one in July. A snow Motley from a BREEDER. Its been kind of hard where I live at to find a good one.

So my little snake is still alive so far but I don't have high hopes because more then likely he was w/c.

However I am not walking away with nothing. I have learned a good lesson here.

And have learned tons of information to fill up the gap that I had once made a mistake.

[norbert03]

little guy will be okay. i need to find a good breeder in my area, too. i'm not really even sure how to find one.

[Just A Beginner]

In England there is a DIY chain called Do It Alls, which has for some reason canged its outlets into "FOCUS Do It Alls" stores which are more specialised. My local Do It Alls became a Pet & Home store, and had a small pet sectionin one corner. They started off with the usual rabbits, mice, chinchillas, guinea-pigs, rats, other rodents, birds like budgies, canaries, lovebirds, lots of tropical and coldwater fish species (no marine) and a few herps, some baby snakes, some lizards and tortoises, some fire bellied toads and tarantulas.

However, the animal care quality was PANTS and pretty soon the good old RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) stepped in. First the exotics vanished from stock, and now the birds have too. I'm sure it wont be long till the mammals go too, a friend of mine bought three rats from there; one died of cancer, another from respiratory problems and the last from some kind of virus/infection... all within a month or two, I cant quite remember.

Make sure you report your concerns to a widley respected animal organisation. Does the US have an equivalent of the RSPCA?

[Taceas]

Yes, we have an ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals...thank God for acronyms).

ASPCA Homepage (http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer)

And I believe that Petco has been and is currently being investigated by the ASPCA for cruelty to animals in many states. Although with anything that invovles millions of dollars, it takes a lot longer than it should to prove fault and wrong-doing.

Personally, I just don't understand how you can peddle off thousands of obviously sick/injured/maimed/dead animals and get away with it for as long as they have. I mean, if one package of meat in the grocery store makes people sick, they recall thousands of pounds of meat that "may" have come in contact with the tainted meat. And that can involve more than just one state. The last case I heard of had to recall beef in more than 7 states..that's a lot of meat for only like 13 people out of thousands/millions getting sick. Kind of self serving don't you think?

People have to have a conscience about something, you'd think. I don't think I could knowingly sell sick animals and then when a customer comes back with a dead animal you act nonchalantly about it. Maybe because I look at animals for what they are, living things, rather than $$$. Now granted I don't treat my pets as people in my family, but I don't treat them like animals either. It's a rather strange thing to try to describe actually. But my animals don't want for nothing. All of their needs, whether it be nutritional, medical, or emotional are met each and every day.

It just makes me madder the more I think about it. I mean, look at Rich...he's got literally thousands of snakes at his residence. And they're all cared for to the best of his ability. They all have food, water, and shelter. Petco can't even manage to properly take care of a cage full of 5 mice. And we trust them to sell "pets"? I don't think so. Something must be done, and if it's up to us regular Joe's then I think we have an obligation to do something. I think the people who run damn-good Petco's should have it in their mindset to change the company they work for, I wouldn't want to be affiliated with bullscheisse like that. A company is only as good as it's customers and stockholders, my grandpa always told me. The CEO can only ignore profit declines so much before he is forced to take action. Whats so hard about having mandatory education seminars for all employees on all animals that are sold? Sure it wastes some money and the time spent they could be working. But I think it speaks for itself on it's worth.

Oh well, I'll not rant anymore..I'll let you have your ears back now. =)

[Krenna]

The guy I am getting the corn from lives in NY, snice your in the tri area maybe you can get one from him. He has really cheap prices.. Send me an email I can give you his info. KrennaO@yahoo.com. Also there is a couple of New england reptile expos coming so not sure if your interested in that ?

http://www.reptileexpo.com/

[stuart]

i am SO sorry for your loss, this post is very sad :( , i'd hate for my lil guy to die. BUT, i was working in the petshop i bought him from and it was my job to care, handle feed clean etc all the reptiles, so i made sure that all of them were happy.
we had a focus DIY store here too, it sold a baby boa that noone bought, it was there for ages, but i must say, the boa did look well cared for, but the lizards, they hadn't a clue, they had all sorts of lizards in one tank, such as basalisks iguanas bearded dragons etc in one tank, all sold for £5 each simply because they didnt know what they were. iguanas have a staple diet of fruit and veges, what focus told them was to feed them insects, inguans wont survive on insects alone, and the unseuspecting buyer, still not sure what he bought starts feeding is herbevore insects ! they got shut down, no more pets are inside any of the focus' near me, a VERY good thing :D !

[kannalia]

thanks everyone!
I am doing all I can to make this right on cleo's behalf! I miss him everyday! and I will never forget him, and I WILL make petco pay for this....because of what must have occured while in there care! I am stilll looking for a new snake, but I am making a new cage for it before hand! again, thanks to all of you for your support! I am so glad I can go somewhere where I am understood!
have a great day!
Jen

[stuart]

i saved a picture of him on my comp as a mark of respect :cry: :cheers:

[kannalia]

you all ROCK!

[ronlina]

Misty Pretty much covered it all there, well said.

I hate it when I hear that this happens. The exact same thing happened to me with my first corn about a year ago (he was an amel, too.) It wasn't long before he died and I later learned it was because of the substrate the store used, (it was cedar and pine mixed) and they had advised me to use the same. It was too acidic, and he refused to eat after a very short time and got weaker until he died. Yeah, I was pretty devastated.


Unfortunately, you're not likely to get a refund or any solace from Petco. Most pet stores have a policy of some kind, a time limit on when you're allowed to bring the animal into question - and some even have a policy that says once you buy the animal you basically agree that it's entirely your responsibility. Still try, though. Go there in PERSON and discuss it with the manager and see what you can do,maybe even contact your humane society or -SPCA, especially if you see any sick animals or animals not being cared for in that store. There's a lot going around about Petco these days especially, they're getting more known for being total asses when it comes to "caring" for animals.


Good luck...

[fradine]

I would walk into the store and ask for the head manager and tell him what happen. Tell him/her that you want a refund only.....they'll do it for you.

another thing is that I feel that the petco people are not educated on herps, so they really don't know the proper care. You should also let the MGR. know he should have a knowledgable staff on all pets in the store.

Fradine

[krista2121]

Im so sry for your loss, pet stores are never reliable. i know how you feel. I had a pet hedgehog and he died because of the neglect at the pet store:( but u should defently talk to the manager about that. Sry again

[shezomru]

i was at petco one time looking for a hamster, and there was a mom ham with some babies, and one of them was floating in the water bowl, dead. i told someone and she replied "Oh, I know." and did absolutely nothing. we left. Petco should be shut down!

[krista2121]

Yes, does anyone know how to make a online petion about shutting down petco, or atleast already know of one. becauase animals dont deserve to be treated that way.

[shezomru]

also, there was a giant goldfish floating at the top of a tank at petco, and i got a similar response when i notified an employee.

[shezomru]

petition
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/443442871?ts=1089571280&sign[partnerID]=1&sign[memberID]=984951959&sign[partner_userID]=984951959

[fsqwert]

"Petco...Where the pets go".....When they wanna FRIGGIN DIE!!!!!!LOL
:dgrin: :mad: :headbang:

[mrweaw]

I am very sorry for your loss, I have had similar issues with my local pet stores but very good luck with PetCo. I bought a red tailed boa from them and it died about a month later. I live six hours away from the store and all I had to do was call with my receipt # and they refunded my credit card with no problems. If you do talk to someone, try the reptile manager. A big part of their problem is that their staff is not educated but every once and a while you get a good employee. I hope it all works out for you.

[Krenna]

ugg sorry to hear about that, I got lucky with my first snake and he is doing pretty good thus far. but have learned if I want any type of good animal to head to a breeder I trust. Lessoned learned, so moving on.

[aNi-DiFrAnCo]

I'm so sorry to hear about Cleo. Makes me glad that the privately owned pet shop I bought my baby Scarlett from is so reliable. We have dealt with them for over 10 years and we are glad to have such a great place in the area. Maybe you might want to get into some sort of animal rights activism that focuses on correcting the problem of certain pet store chains and bad private ones. Good luck on getting a new guy/girl.