Pet Shop Precautions
I went to MidValley Megamall in KL today, to buy some stuff before I leave on the cruise. I made a detour to Pets Wonderland, the pet shop upstairs, to see if I could buy some Habitrail tubes for Tim’s cage. Of course I could buy other brands, but I like the Habitrail Mini tubes because they come apart for washing.
Of course I couldn’t resist taking a look at the animals. Dog area looked fine, no comments there. The cat enclosures seemed spacious and well-appointed, but it’s not all hunky-dory in there. A little girl was pointing out a white cat to her parents, then the cat looked up and revealed a swollen left eye. The child, in her innocence, asked her parents “what’s wrong with the cat’s eye?” I hope that left an impression on anyone who saw. There is no reason for an animal to be in less than perfect condition in a pet shop. If there’s something amiss, the quality of the pet care and living conditions should immediately be questioned. It wasn’t just one cat with an eye infection, a grey kitten in the corner cage had it as well.
They also had a couple of hedgehogs and a sugar glider, as well as the usual reptiles and some tarantulas. I’m very blasé about such things because I’ve been seeing them for sale for a very long time, plus Malaysia isn’t as strict on exotic pets as Singapore is.
The area of interest for me was the small animal section. They’ve revamped it since I was last there, there were more enclosures and the mice were on display. The mice were erroneously labeled as “white mice” when they were actually different colours. The proper term is “fancy mice”, to differentiate them from wild mice, but I suppose the general public only understands “white mice” as the usual “clean” pet mouse. Above them was the “satin mice” enclosure. I don’t see much difference between the 2 kinds, although the satin ones are supposed to have silkier coats (see here). The price difference for the 2 kinds is clear as day, though. “White” mice cost RM6 while “satin” mice cost RM20. Wow.
My biggest issue with the mice was the fact that they did not separate the sexes. The adult males were running around in the same tank as adult females, as well as some smaller mice whose sex I couldn’t determine (cos they were running around and I couldn’t see their rear ends). Even if no fighting occurs, usual policy is to separate the sexes, not just to prevent breeding but also to maintain the health of the animals. Females shouldn’t have more than 3 litters in their lifetimes, and 1 litter per lifetime is optimum. Raising babies is terribly stressful, and it’s not any easier when male mice want to hump the females right after they’ve given birth. Plus, how healthy can babies be if they’re born to an overworked mother?
It’s also a consumer issue. You won’t want to buy mice, especially female mice, from a place that doesn’t separate the sexes. Some people may think it’s good value to get a whole litter for the price of one mouse, but those who intend to keep them as pets won’t see it that way. The babies will just end up abandoned, and that’s assuming they survive, since stressed-out mothers will eat or maim their babies. Considering that most buyers will be first-time mouse owners, how many of them will know how to handle a mouse and her newborns?
I think Pets Wonderland doesn’t bother taking good care of the small animals, since the hamsters also seem to be all lumped together. Small animals are harder to sex than cats and dogs, but that just means they should get someone with experience to separate them instead of making excuses. Heck, I wanted to offer to sex and separate their mice, but their staff have that “I just work here” look, so talking to them probably wouldn’t have done much good anyway.
It wouldn’t be hard to sex mice, and it would make life easier when someone wants to buy mice, because then you’d know which tank had which sex. So if someone wanted 2 female mice, you’d just take them to the females’ tank and let them choose 2. See, simple. But I guess Pets Wonderland is more interested in making money out of foolish humans than it is in safeguarding the value of their products. It really pisses me off, but what can I do except complain?
February 27th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Unless pet owners come down hard on this all-too-common policy of pet stores treating their animals more like commodities, then I guess this problem will continue to plague the pet industry everywhere.
Besides, for some pet stores, it might be desirable to house their pets in less than perfect conditions. If a pet dies a premature (and unnecessary) death, a n00b owner might just go and get a replacement, usually from the same store. Ka-ching!