Cranky, it’s even worse than that. I worked at a pet store in the mall just after graduating from college. Not only were these puppy mill puppies, but every sick animal on the floor–be they rodent, reptile, canine, or feline–was pulled from the “shelves” and shoved in the back. Supposedly, they were there to be cared for. Bullshit. The owner would bitch you out if he saw you back there, because you weren’t on the floor pushing the “product.” (That’s what he called any and every animal–“the product.”) Sick animals can’t be sold, you see.
I won’t go into the horrors I saw back there. They make me sick to think about them.
I will only tell the story that has a happy ending. Angel was a 3-month-old sheltie pup. Like all shelties we seemed to get, she had something wrong; in her case, it was “collie nose.” This is a benign, but ugly, skin condition that causes patches of fur to fall out around the eyes and nose. Obviously, she was an unsellable damaged “product.” So, like all uncute puppies before her, she was crammed into a puppy crate and shoved in the back. And left there. For two weeks, I never once saw ANYONE do ANYTHING for her during my full-time shifts. However, one coworker must’ve been doing something because she left a note on the board telling us we had to remember to feed her, give her water, clean her bedding–you know, make her conditions at least a little livable.
Long of the short: My parents adopted her. The puppy mill had refunded the store the money; if they’d sent her back she would’ve just been put down. It’s outrageous.
She is now a happy, fat, spoiled rotten 7-year-old. And by the way–she outgrew the “collie nose” condition.
My recommendations? Never buy anything alive–not even a goldfish–from a mall pet store, or any pet store offering “pedigreed” puppies/kittens. Ever.* In fact, inspect carefully and call the ASPCA if you have the slightest concern about conditions.
That was my lesson. Pass it on.
), I manage a liquor store, so I have a wee bit of experience here. I have to say that, yes, it’s absolute bullshit that a store has to refuse to sell liquor on those grounds. However, and this needs to be made pretty clear, it is not the store’s bullshit. It is the legislators’ (and often, the city councils’ and the state liquor control boards’) bullshit. So much of the burden on stores is entirely arbitrary (i. e., requirements that “you must card everyone under 27 years old, while simultaneously knowing their age before you card them”) and so many of the regulatory agencies measure success in the number of violations that they write up, that most stores nowadays (the smart ones, at least) are moving toward simply carding everyone they see, since that’s the only way to prevent some undercover asshole from claiming that they should have asked him who he was buying for, or whatever (my, that’s a hell of a runon sentence there). The Motos’ experience is unfortunately right in line with what we have to do to keep ourselves off the evening news. At my store, for example, we not only card everyone who buys alcohol from us, and everyone travelling with someone buying liquor, we have a policy, writ large on the front door where nobody can miss it, of not allowing anyone under 21 to come on our premises. Even if all you want to buy is a soda, I have to have my cashiers check your ID, and I have to kick you out if you can’t show it -and everyone with you, as well. It’s not that I’m an asshole, you understand - the company I work for got targeted Very Heavily by the revenooers at one point, so our only option is to go to these ridiculous extremes rather than risking any sort of judgement call, since any attempt at judgement would just open us up to another infestation of sting operators.