"Pet shops display adorable puppies, kittens, and other animals to lure customers into making impulse purchases that come with a hefty price tag. The vast majority of dogs sold in pet shops are raised in puppy mills, facilities that are notorious for their cramped, crude, and filthy conditions and their continuous breeding of unhealthy and hard-to-socialize animals. Other common problems in the pet shop industry include selling sick and injured animals to the public, failing to provide proper veterinary care, unsanitary conditions, and inhumane methods of killing sick and unwanted animals. Click here to learn more about puppy mills.
Pet Shops Sell Sick Animals
Many pet shops fail to provide proper veterinary care to animals and often sell sick and injured animals. Be on the lookout for neglect at your local pet store. Click here to find out how to help sick and/or neglected animals in pet shops and what to do if you purchased a sick animal from a pet shop.
Little Shops of Horror
Petco, Petland, and Family Pet Centers are big names in the pet industry—and big abusers, according to the many complaints filed by employees and customers who have contacted PETA to report abuse to animals by managers and other employees, as well as rampant neglect of sick and injured animals. Click here for information about complaints about specific pet stores.
Breeding Cruelty
Those who breed millions of dogs and cats each year for profit are contributing to the companion animal overpopulation crisis. Every newborn puppy or kitten means one home fewer for a dog or cat desperately waiting in a shelter or roaming the streets. Click here for more details about why it's irresponsible to breed animals while millions of healthy, adoptable animals are euthanized in shelters.
Online Animal Auctions Off Base
Web sites selling animals to the highest bidder or to the first person who pays the asking price are taking impulse buying to a new low by allowing buyers to order puppies, kittens, birds, reptiles, and "exotic" animals online for delivery. Unlike unwanted CD's or sweaters, which can easily be tossed into the closet or sold secondhand, animals are not objects to be purchased on a whim and disposed of when the novelty wears off. Click here for more information about Web sites that offer live animals for sale.
Help Stop Pet Shop Abuses
Make sure that you do not support animal abuse—purchase companion animal supplies only from stores that do not sell live animals. Inform shops that sell animals that you are boycotting their business until they switch to "supplies only." Click here for more ways to help.
No Gift for the Animals
You may be tempted to give an animal as a gift—don't give in. While it's easy enough to toss an unwanted necktie to the back of the closet, a puppy, kitten, fish, or other animal who is given as a gift risks a lifetime of suffering, unloved and unwanted.
Kids Can Be Cruel
Whether intentionally or not, some children can be cruel. Baby animals and small animals are especially vulnerable to broken bones or even death when roughly handled by overly eager or aggressive children.
Many children quickly lose interest in caring for animals who require special care and feeding—and who suffer without necessary care. Millions of impatient, frustrated parents take unwanted animals to crowded animal shelters every year, others pass animals off to acquaintances or simply chain the "troublesome" animals outside or lock them in outdoor cages to go mad from boredom, loneliness, and frustration.
Adding a companion animal to the family is a huge responsibility. Everyone in the family must be amenable to the lifelong commitment to care for and spend time with the selected animal. Carefully consider the time, training, and expense required to properly care for the animal, including food, accessories, inoculations, and veterinary care, including emergency care.
If you decide you have the desire, time, and resources to properly care for a companion animal, wait until the busy holiday season is over before bringing the animal home. A new family member needs your time, patience, and attention—all of which are in scarce supply during a busy season of parties and festivities. Click here to view PETA's "12 Days of Christmas" advertisement.
You can improve the lives of dogs and cats suffering from cruelty and neglect. Click here to support PETA's work for companion animals."
From http://www.helpinganimals.com/i-petshop.html
I wanted to add this section because a majority of the public has no idea about the sick and twisted business behind the pet shops who sell animals.
Also I want you to know that EVERY PETSHOP who sells animals is the same!!! I hear all the time "well at the petshop I got my puppy from, they have a small group of selected breeders they get their puppies from and they are carefully screened." That is absolutely 100% FALSE!!! Petshops will tell you this to make you think that they care. But if you have them get out the actual paperwork, it will have a corporation at the top where the puppies actually come from, and they are PUPPYMILLS!!!
