  Petco - The Place Where Pets Die |
History Repeats ItselfKind Planet's staff has been involved in the Petco tragedy since the founding of The Sanctuary in the mid '90's. At that time The Sanctuary was located in Marin County, CA. Marin's Animal Control agency is Marin Humane Society. Marin is blessed with a very strong Animal Advocacy organization in control of enforcing local laws that protect animals from abuse. Additionally, because they are funded as a nonprofit agency and as a county agency, they have a greater opportunity to enforce laws and educate the public. The Sanctuary's staff often called MHS, (Marin Humane Society), regarding abuse situations in Marin. MHS would respond quickly by sending out a Humane Officer, red lights flashing from the top of their vehicles. Marin County also has a regulation that requires anyone selling live animals to obtain a $100 permit. MHS is the agency responsible for issuing the permit. They are also the agency that can revoke the permit. Pet stores in Marin are watched over very carefully. While we were still in Marin, the two Petco stores in that county opened their doors. In less than a year, the first of the stores, located in San Rafael, had it's aviary shut down by MHS. This came after many warnings given to the managers of the store regarding the health of the birds being sold.To find out the status of the Petco stores in that county, we recently spoke with MHS Spokesperson, John Reese. Mr. Reese informed us that they still receive occasional complaints regarding both Marin County Petco stores. We asked Mr. Reese how MHS viewed the stores after all this time. "We would like to see Petco give the animals in their stores quality care more consistently," Mr. Reese responded. We asked if MHS thought that was possible, given Petco's chain store mentality. He stated that it was his impression that the managers of the store thought so. He further stated that there are factors that might prevent Petco from being able to live up to that vision, one of which is the high turnaround of employees. Kind Planet agrees with that assessment. Before moving from Marin to the San Luis Obispo Area The Sanctuary staff worked with Melissa Kaplan of Anapsid.org. Melissa’s work in attempting to halt the sale of animals at Petco stores are well documented on the Anapsid website. Melissa's documentation illustrates many of the reasons why consistent care is unlikely. A lack of expertise on the part of staff is seen over and over again. And if the occasional well educated employee is given the responsibility of caring for the animals in the stores, can we expect them to stay? >>next - Consistent Quality Care? Petco Where Pets Die Consistent Quality Care? |
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